Ready to move on
We're very done with our current home. It's too small, but if needed, we could deal with that some longer since thankfully our bedroom and living room don't feel small at all. No outside is a big reason, it's already becoming too hot inside and it's only halfway through April. No decent way to ventilate the bedroom and the bathroom plus the office, which means mold issues and this only gets worse thanks to the laundry that needs to dry inside the living room, which I'm starting to hate deeply as the laundry never ends.
Last week we were cleaning the inside of our bed and we found mold in there, took half of the day to clean as well as let it dry properly before I could close the bed again. The biggest reason is probably the metal stairs that are located on top of the public stairs in front of our rooms. First of all, people are chilling there often 7 days a week, sometimes day and night (different groups) and what's causing most issues is them bouncing on the metal stairs (which is the fire escape, funnily the door is locked, so much for safety!) and then they start smoking in front of our rooms as well as being extremely loud until deep in the night.
Recently one of the newer and more problematic guys even started to threaten us in front of the window and we can only wait for this to get out of hand because I simply won't be bullied in my own home or have their smoke and noise inside while our daughter (or all of us) are sleeping. If it's rare, we can deal with it, but not when it becomes the rule.
House hunting
We went back and forward exploring options and recently we found 2 homes a bit uphill (which is fine with a car) where the buildings are new and have a sea view and a big terrace that triggered me to fasten the search again and to make sure we could manage to move in case we'd find the right home. We already accepted at that time that we'd probably end up having 2 bedrooms not three as desired. It's too hard here to find one with 3 bedrooms for a good price. Not impossible, but hard.
The thing is these two options uphill don't come furnished so on top of the rental cost, deposit, and possible agency costs, we'd need to spend money on furniture because the only furniture we own currently is the two desks and chairs. I had a bright moment and thought, let's check another website and see if anything pops up there.
Bingo! Three bedrooms!
Not only was the bedroom count great but there was a balcony and the furniture was very nice. Two bathrooms and you could walk out the street and be on the street more or less. The school was around the corner and probably the best area we have seen so far in this region. Fifty euros less rent, sounds too good to be true, right? It probably was the first red flag. I could only act on it though because as it's just April, there are options out there that are affordable, usually from owners that don't want to deal with the quickly moving market in a few months when tourists arrive.
The first red flags
I tried finding the apartment on another website where they usually list rentals, but it wasn't there. The website I used has a blue checkmark for verified accounts but you only need an email address and a phone number to verify so in reality it doesn't mean anything.
The owner responded a few hours after I asked if the apartment was still available and I received a positive answer. She then said she included a photo with an email address for easier contact. Now I wondered why she sent it in a photo, first assuming this was because the site wouldn't allow this in DM. Until I could respond with my email later, that was another red flag. This was clearly done to avoid the system from picking up a known scam email address or something.
She said she was out of the country for work, which could be a red flag but not uncommon for owners to live or work abroad, we had it a few times before, without any scam going on. They then hire a company to deal with the contracts and visits.
It was weird how she mentioned that she hired Booking company which is a trustworthy company (she specifically mentioned it in that email) to deal with the contract. I Googled but could not find any company with a name similar at first but then I figured I will ask for the details later because the first thing we needed was to get an appointment to see the apartment. I asked yesterday evening, can you ask the company when they have time today so we can get things moving.
This was fully ignored in the email this morning and the "owner" instantly started talking about if you want to go forward with the transaction (weird word choice, right?) then you pay 1100 euros to the company and you get the keys (nowhere it was mentioned where the keys would be handed over, also weird if you'd fall for this part) and then we'd have 2 days to decide. If we wouldn't want it, we'd be 100% refunded. Oh, and she also said she'd take care of the company's cost.
Funnily my boyfriend sent me a news article yesterday where he mentioned that these costs will soon be paid by the owner mandatory, instead of passing these costs to the tenants. Apparently, that's booming business in busy cities for the agencies. Nowhere in the email it was mentioned, you can see the apartment and nowhere it was clarified if we were this stupid, how we'd get the keys.
We wanted that apartment badly, but no way we are going to fall for this. It was a false listing for sure.
Popular scams
Although the articles I found on Google about rental scams were all in other areas, I gained a bit of knowledge about what often happens. She also wanted our documents and proof of income, which is not uncommon but we'd never send that to someone without seeing a home first and then having a good feeling about the person on the other side first. This was another red flag, nowhere the visit was discussed but yet she wanted proof of income and our documents. No way!
What happens a lot is that when people fall for it, not only do they lose the money they transferred but then loans are being taken on the person falling for the scam, and items are ordered to their home. Then the items are intercepted before the owner gets them simply by adding another phone number and no doorbell for example. Then they sell these items under the value but the person who's scammed, pays full price, of course.
I think they may have moved their focus to this area with these scams now that this coast is becoming more popular and listings are moving so fast that often you can't even speak to the person who lists it as the apartment is rented out already.
Good reminder
Although disappointed, it was a good reminder to be careful in this mad world of scammers and never send anyone your documents without blurring some data if you have to send them. At some point you will have to make the contract, the owner needs them but never when they're trying to move fast without seeing the apartment first.
We're considering at least checking those two apartments uphill because they both have a fabulous terrace and amazing view and cost less (just 2 bedrooms though). Curious to find out if these are for real. Let's put them to the test. If we don't find anything in the next 2 months, we will sit it out here until after the summer holidays because finding something in July and August will be impossible and not worth my time. We will then postpone the search in September and hopefully move before winter.
Thankfully I don't have to dwell in self-misery as I'm taking care of a bundle of kittens since yesterday. They are so adorable, how could I not have a smile on my face all day?
