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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Real Estate and Landlording => Topic started by: Riasmehta23 on June 27, 2015, 02:11:03 PM

Title: Home to be rented out by Owner in Texas - (Zillow)
Post by: Riasmehta23 on June 27, 2015, 02:11:03 PM

Hello everyone, I am new here..so pls forgive any rookie mistakes...

So I put my own home for rent in Zillow.com and 5 days later this real estate agent contacted me for showing.  Her questions were regarding her compensation.  I told her that she will receive her half of the first month rent (typical agent's commission).  After few texts back and forth she realized that I am not REALTOR (I did not hide it either).  She tells me its not legal in state of Texas to post your house advertise without being Realtor.  I disagreed because ZILLOW has an option of "Rent your house as the Owner" which flies in the face of her theory.  Anyways after the text chat I went to see my listing on the zillow website and My home for rent listing just DISAPPEARED!!
I am sure it is not coincidence and that realtor has something to do with it.  Can anyone tell me what is/may be going on? Ofcourse I have contacted Zillow to get my house up on rent on their website ASAP.  But their customer service is horrible and I want to do everything legally.

Can you answer the following questions?
1.  Is it legal for Home owner to post advertisement for their house in Texas on zillow.com for rent?
2.  Did she report my advertise as SPAM which may have cause my listing to disappear?


Thank you for your input in advance!
Ria

Title: Re: Home to be rented out by Owner in Texas - (Zillow)
Post by: rachael talcott on June 27, 2015, 03:58:24 PM

I don't live in Texas, but as far as I can tell from Nolo, it's legal to rent your own property in every state.  The person you talked to may have thought that you were listing someone else's property, or she may have just been confused or malicious.  It is possible that she flagged you as spam.  I have suspected that in the past when I've turned someone down as a prospective tenant.  But there is no way to know for sure. 

I like Craigslist because I can do prescreening by email. 

If you are new to renting property, be sure to read up on how to screen tenants.  LOTS of the people who respond to my ads have terrible credit or no job or a criminal record.  You really need to be careful.

Title: Re: Home to be rented out by Owner in Texas - (Zillow)
Post by: arebelspy on June 28, 2015, 04:00:20 PM

Use Postlets which will syndicate the listing to Zillow and a bunch of other places as well.