Probably the best thing you could do for yourself when you are about to rent is to know what you are signing beforehand. So obvious yet also the biggest omission people just keep making.
How many of us really have the time to actually read that legal jargon anyway? I felt it just wasn’t important enough either to bother with as a youth and got burned as a result. Make the time. That old saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” couldn’t be more true.
If you haven’t rented much, you’re going to find out real quick that most rental agreements overwhelmingly favor landlords. Since you are going into this from an inferior position, wouldn’t you like to know your rights beforehand?
Also, with all this new video phone technology, you’d be foolish not to record every flaw of your new diggs with the owner/manager the day you inspect it. Be sure they can actually see you recording everything because they’ll remember that the day you ask for your deposit back. When it came time for me to get my own later on, no questions were ever asked.
Be really careful with extended leases of six months, a year or more. Our society is more mobile than most yet thousands of people keep breaking their leases, and their pocketbooks, every month anyway. Consider the greater flexibility and money you could save with a monthly lease instead.
