Can any agent that gets paid to find tenants for lanlords give us an idea of how it works? What is your fee, how do you find tenants, how do you find customers (landlords)? What is the toughest and easiest part of the process?

Here in SoCal each side typically gets 3% each of annual lease amount. As far as finding tenants the listings are in the MLS. I advertise on craigslist and get a lot of inquiries from that.

Fellow KW agent

I work with a lot of investors that won't necessarily list the house for lease with me, but offer to pay me a leasing fee any time I bring them a tenant that leases. This type of arrangement is generally with an investor that manages their own rental units.

Any time that I have someone looking for something that I don't currently have available (either listed, personally owned, or in MLS), I go to the phones and start calling investors that may have a vacancy. It gets me a leasing comm, it keeps me in touch with my investors, and it keeps their investment properties full....Win/win deal for everyone.

Fees are always negotiable. You'll find that in some areas it is customary to base the fee on that total rent, other areas it may be based on 1 month's rent, or it could just be a flat fee. You'll want to talk with your broker about that.

our MLS in Northern Illinois doesnt even offer the residential rental category. We have commercial but not homes. That kind of burns me up because I pay alot for my dues and it doesnt seem so hard for them to set up that option

Our MLS has rentals and the typical finder fee is 1/2 of one month's rent for a year lease.
Jim

We do not have a rental section in our MLS system either which is MLXCHANGE. I have been trying to get rental listings to list on my website, just started this 2008 so I will see how this goes.
I would love to find some renters and get a few bucks fast cash LOL.

I have just found a someone who wants to lease a home that is for sale and for lease, How would you structure this? And how do both agents end up getting paid?

Thanks

Typically here people pay 1 month's rent for a year lease. For each agent of course - both landlord's and tenant's.
That's very common. Ads are on websites mainly. If someone wants both to lease and to sell, we make both ads.

A home can be offered for lease and/or for sale. Commission is usually negotiated by the seller/landlord and the listing agent.

Yes, I will find a tenant for a fee. But to earn my fee, I also find and screen the tenants, negotiate and write the lease, check references and make sure the house is turn key. I take 10% of the first year's rent and that is given to me up front and is non-refundable if the tenant moves out early. After my fee is collected, the property is managed by a separate property manager and I am out.

here in Thailand i am a Property Manager, Sales Agent and Rental Manager. I find rental tenants for 10% of the total booking. Seperate rental management fees apply if i am the property and/or rental manager.

Yes i find a tenants fee also and for only 10%.

In Texas, apartment locating is big business. We locate tenants for apartments full time. We have databases that list thousands of properties, their amenities, etc and the commission they are willing to pay for a successfully signed lease. The amounts are typically 50% to 100% of the first months rent. There are often gems though where Apartment will pay 200% commissions for a successful lease.

Long live Apartment Locating!

For residential units... I offer full service property management... but I will do one time rentals for 1/2 of one months rent with a min fee of $1000.

The realty co. (not a franchise) that I work out of also has a rental company. If I bring them a tenant, I'm supposed to get the first month's rent and last month's rent too (if they stay the whole year). I haven't done that intentionally, and probably wouldn't. I manage the rental properties I own and do not pay a fee if someone passes my phone number along to a prospective tenant.

Seems to me this is a subject that is very locale dependent, and even very individual MLS and office dependent.

i hate finding tenents and doing rentals. its so time comsuming for the little compensation.

If I find tenants for a residential property... I personally charge 1/2 of 1 months rent... with a min fee of $1000.

Southern CA.

My friends just signed a 2 year rental agreement and used an agent to find the house. The homeowner paid the agents one month's rent, which they split in half. Not bad really...my friends only took up about 4 hours of the agents time looking at homes, and then about an hour signing paperwork with the homeowner and his agent. She made about $800.

When I hear "Rentals", I want to run the opposite direction.

You saw someone make $800.00, but they made ZIP on all the other people who may have looked at the same place. And there was an unseen amount of time spent with the LandLord in setting up the Agreement to allow anything to be collected, plus they just may have had some advertising expense, and a certain Insurance protection for the Liability associated with conducting the Marriage Ceremony between a LandLord and his New Tenants. I find that the Tenant Community is far more litigious than the people who we consider "Buyers".

The LandLord may also have expected the Agent to do the background and credit checks on all prospective Tenants (not just the ones who actually become the occupants), and also be the messenger with the Bad News to those who don't pass muster.

I like to tell LandLords that they can go thumbtack a 3" X 5" Card on the Bulletin Board at every Supermarket and Laundramat within 25 Miles and get some responses. They can then screen the calls themselves and worry about the Lead Paint Issues, Fair Housing Requirements and other Non-Discriminatory Equal Access Liability burdens. They can also interview the past LandLords and any References that prospective Tenants "might" give.

After all is said and done, that was probably a hard earned $800.00 . . . . and why are there Two (2) Agents required to do a simple little rental ? Nothing is ever as simple as it might appear from the outside.

Remember: What you Gross and what you Net can be very, very, very different.

But to answer the original question . . . . No, I don't find Tenants for a Fee; and I hope they don't find me! When I have an Apartment House or other Rental Property listed For Sale, and there is a need to locate a new Tenant, I will, as a Courtesy, refer Rental Inquiries to that Owner . . . . but I don't want to be paid for that effort, or bear any responsibility for endorsing the prospective Tenant as being "a Good One".

You can make money only if done right. I do not think you will see any secrets revealed here.

I do leases for quick cash right now.....the ones I am doing arent high bar ones....but its cash flow while I work on buyers and sellers

Say what you may about rentals. You can make over 100K annually if you play the deck right.

The Minneapolis RMLS is finally adding a Rental Property section to our MLS. This will change the culture a bit around here, as prior to this, all of us private landlords have relied heavily on word-of-mouth, Craigslist, or Rentals.com. As a private, do-it-yourselfer landlord, I am not familiar with paying any finder fees for my tenants (or collecting a finder's fee for helping another landlord find a tenant).