What kinda bs is this? (renting Q)

To repeat what my accountant said about something entirely different, "Eh, it's Oklahoma. It doesn't have to make sense."

I've heard of it, but I've never actually had to do it. It seems pretty shady to me.

...there are a few here who live there.
Maybe they know of a place for rent.

It's pretty common here. I won't look at places that require more than 25.00. I also note that "managed" complexes are more likely to charge a fee that's excessive. I prefer to have a Real Live Person as a landlord--I've had much better luck with them.

Bahamutchild said:

I've been looking and looking for housing in Oklahoma. Two places now that maintain fairly large lists (so people are using them) require a 25-50 dollar 'application fee'

I'm sorry, huh? You want me to pay you to be subject to your scrutiny and final judgment? Is this ethical? Maybe ethical is too strong a word. But if I paid 25 and they said no, I'd be banging down their door. (Also, my credit is great, so what the hey?)

End rant.

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Yea, and out here they make you pay for each adult that will be living in the house regardless if one is not with income or paying the rent, you live there you pay to apply.

Don't get me started on the renting rants, I just screened my landlords call and I want to tear her head off right now.

She's threatening to file an eviction because I wont fax her a letter stating that I will be vacating at the end of the month. I told her I would leave, and that's that. I'm not providing anything in writing for her to use against me in some way that I'm sure she'll try to find.

At this point I don't care if she files an eviction....with all the gunshots, fighting in the streets, drug deals on my front porch, I figure I'll have reasonable cause to vacate before my lease is up.

Hasty move on my part, did not think before I moved....seemed ok at the moment. The neighborhood had been cleaning up. I was so very wrong.

Wait, so for every apartment you apply to, you have to pay $25 just to apply?

What. the. fuck?

I used to manage an apartment building in LA. The application fee is to cover the cost of running a credit check. They also look for prior evictions and bankruptcy. What the landlord does not want is someone to move in and not pay rent. The owner then has to try to evict the person. In LA, evicting someone is a time consuming process and the owner loses money they never recover while the case makes it way through the system.

Yes, it's to pay the credit check fees and for the clerical time to do reference checks.
once when I was looking, I paid for my own credit check and talked the potential landlords into accepting that instead of running their own. it reduced much of the fee.
Also, I did have one place offer to apply the cost towards the first month's rent.

It's standard practice here in Minnesota, for background/criminal/credit checks.

The application fee is to cover the cost of running a credit check. They also look for prior evictions and bankruptcy.

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It's also for the background checks, as Ben noted. They can be liable if a tenant, who they didn't propery check out, winds up a sex offender too close to a school, or the like. Then they'll get sued.

I've heard of employers charging $25 for background checks, drug tests, etc., so this doesn't seem too out of line to me.

Rest assured that if you do get a place in there, at least they did the best screening they could, so you will be safer there than places which don't do those checks.

I seriously doubt they'd let you do your own background and credit checks, even if you have some way to "prove" you didn't alter it, which probably isn't possible. I'm not even sure if you can do a background check on yourself.

What are these two "lists" you mentioned? I'm missing something there.

I've heard of this (charging an application/background check fee of potential renters) being done by people renting out houses who called into Clark Howard's radio show (http://clarkhoward.com, and you may also want to ask about this in the forums on that site, there's surely lots of people there who know about this), so I'm sure it's "legit" in that it's not illegal. But the money is non-refundable, AND if they turn you down I suspect they don't have to tell you why, so I could see it easily getting into scammy territory of people offering a place to rent, taking $25 applications fees from everyone who applies, and turning them down. I might do my own pre-investigation to make sure the place is really for rent, and even then, there would be nothing to keep them from taking a dozen applications and not even doing all the background checks, just picking the one they like best.

Maryn said:

I wonder, might it be possible to spend that $25 once and do your own credit and background check, offering a photocopy of the results with your application and allowing them to see the original so they know it's not forged? Or is that simply not done?

Maryn, who hasn't rented in a long while

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I doubt it.

But, I'm thinking you could at least show it to them and tell them your legal history (traffic tickets, the public drunkeness arrest when you were in college - anything they would reasonably find in public records) and ask them if that all checked out, would you be approved to rent, BEFORE actually paying the $25. Of course they could tell you yes, you could pay the $25 and it could all check out, and they could still turn you down for some unknown reason. And there's no way of knowing (without doing a sting operation, as has been done for investigating charges of racial discrimination) whether or how often that happens.

I'd as soon live in a garbage can than give these criminals my personal informatioon. Landlords tell you how it's legal for them to take it, yet they don't tell the number they're looking for. It's to keep "those people" out in New York. It's a racist law that white people didn't care about until their credit scores fell.

Didja know they have to file paperwork to the state explaining why you were turned down? No one does because for some crazy reason they don't tell you that. Weird...

I was the superintendent of two buildings in New York so I'm saying what I saw as far as credit scores being used for housing.

Had a comment/question, but it would continue the thread derailment. Carry on.

If it makes you feel any better, if you rent a house from a real estate agent here, you usually have to pay a bond of 2 to 4 weeks rent, two weeks rent in advance and one weeks rent letting fee.

Expensive business this renting thing...