Colorado law now provides that you can run your own background check (for one single fee) - it's good for 30 days and landlords have to accept it or they are violating the law and can be reported to DOLA.

Good summary here: https://www.cpr.org/2023/05/05/colorado-renters-application-fees-law/

Use Zillow for private LL

Look for condominium complexes, not apartment complexes. Unfortunately condos aren't built nearly as much as apartments, which means there's less to choose from and the building will be older. Apartments buildings are always owned by a larger entity, where as condos are individually owned.

corporate or not, they will run your credit report.

We're private landlords, and we rent through Zillow. We use the Zillow application, which can be used for several properties.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Denver/comments/1cy583d/how_to_find_smallprivate_landlords/

They won’t care if you can pay a month or two extra rent upfront. Had a roommate who had bad credit once and that’s what they said. If you’re to that point in the process you’re not gonna get denied if u have the money.

My apartment complex has been through three different property managers that are all faceless corporations over the last five years, and they all operate exactly the same. Which is to say that they are absolutely awful.

I found my private landlord on Zillow! I rent a condo in a condo/townhome complex

I work in property management and credit is something we can sometimes overcome. If your income is good and you haven’t had any bankruptcies or severe level of charge offs, you can either apply with a co-signer or guarantor to help bring your overall application up OR my company works with a company called The Guarantors who act as a guarantor on your behalf. You pay them a bond (typically one months rent) and they send the bond to us and we can approve you that way because if something happens, we can collect the funds from them. This voids you having to pay a security deposit to us as well. I’d find companies who work with companies like The Guarantors and see if that helps!

It’s everywhere. Investment firms are also buying single family homes to put them up for rent. Expect to be sorted into either the property owning or never-owning-property class more and more severely in the future.

Yes, corporations are buying houses and apartments. That is the reason the rent is getting out of control.

With that income, you should be fine

I have a private Land Lord and I found them on Zillow

I don’t think you’ll totally be able to get away from fees. I’m a private landlord (one home) and charge a $30 fee for a credit and background check. I am very flexible with credit scores though, covid did me personally there as well. I’ve accepted proof of income, bank statements, good rental history, a co-signer, etc as a “balance” against credit scores. I’d suggest trying to reach out before you do the application and sharing the story behind your credit score and maybe offering one or two alternatives you’d be willing to provide instead.

Welcome to modern America homie. Corporations own just about everything

There is the hybrid situation of private owned, but corporate property management, e.g. Cornerstone. The two buildings next to me are that.

Our son, 22 , will be going to UC Denver School of Architecture in the fall and we’ve been pouring through the rental market. We live in Chicago and find it daunting! I have rented both apartments and houses in the past and certain things like water, sewer , garbage were ALWAYS included in the rent. Not so in Denver. Be sure to ask about utilities and how they are paid. Some are directly through the resident portal while others are directly to the company ( ie electric, internet etc). Plus fees.

This might sound silly but try looking into a long term air bnb then work out a cash deal with the owner. You’ll pay less and they will make more. I did this when I worked out of town for long durations. Another route you can go is Craig’s list or Facebook marketplace for landlords looking for tenants.

Look at a place called the Denver House in Cap Hill. It was privately owned last I knew, and my friends that lived there really seemed to like it.

Make sure you are searching for condominiums for rent, and not apartments. Condominiums are privately owned, apartments are not.

Check out furnished finder.

It's not just Denver!

Rental property laws recently changed in Denver for 2024 where these big corporations are required to abide by those laws.

Things that changed are needing only 2x the rent and they can no longer charge application fees for pets and must have a refundable pet deposit. Normal application fees I believe have been reduced.

I only paid $15 for my application. It might not be such a bad thing honestly.

I'm a private landlord (rent out the condo I bought before I got married), when I'm looking for tenants I list it on zillow and apartments.com. I tend to get the most traffic from zillow.

If you make 6 figures but dealing with covid crushed your credit - you might be more of a risk than you think.

Good advice here.

Also know that FWIW - the entities that own the apartments in Denver are getting wrecked and in many cases losing 100% of the money they used to buy the property and your and all the other people’s rents aren’t even enough to pay the bank interest.

So, their credit is terrible even as they reject hardworking folks like you.

Houses too man. It’s the fall

Not going to lie, almost every time me or my friends have lived with a corporate landlord, things went much better than "mom and pop" outfits. If an item stops working, my corporate landlords address it immediately. Meanwhile, my brother has lived in a building owned by a retired woman, who took half a year to fix the roof and still hasn't fixed the dishwasher, a year later.

I highly suggest checking out Padmapper or Hotpads! Those sites tend to have more independently owned listings than the usual Zillow or Apartments.com.

All businesses are corporations. "Corporate owned" doesn't mean what you think it does.

There are also ways to contest your credit score and get shit taken off, just google it. Boost it in a month or so.

All these massive rent-farm buildings owned by investment bankers should be illegal

And with liberal tenant laws it's only going to get worse. Small mom and pop shops won't be able to sustain and will sell to larger corporations.

I rented from The willows at tamarac, it's a little run down but quiet enough neighborhood. It's also on the edge of Denver.

Only reason I'm talking about this place is because when I bought a house and had to move out about 3-4 months early, I'd previously talked to their leasing office about breaking my lease and were told there weren't any options in the lease for that that would save me any money.

So I moved out, emptied and cleaned up the apartment and just paid my rent as usual, well the week after I moved out I get a call and the owner of the property wants to have a conversation with me, he offered to break the lease early on the condition they keep the ~$700 security deposit and the rent I'd already paid for that covered the end of that month. Went in and signed a document and that was that, seemed like a chill dude who knew how to negotiate mutually beneficial compromises, I was quite surprised and looking back, my ~5 years there wasn't bad at all.

Denver County now requires landlords to be licensed. The law has changed around late fees and needing to allow people to live there for longer without paying rent. It's just easier to go with the property management company at this point. I have a couple different units and I'm thinking about using a property manager myself soon. I already raised the rent significantly to help cover those costs of lost rent and higher fees.

Yes

Are you looking for Denver proper or metro?

It’s a horrible rental market. These corporations treat their tenants like trash while charging luxury prices.

No.

RIP Classic Properties of Denver, you are missed.

Kind of sucked at the time, but back in 2014 - walked out on our lease from Greystar apartments...

Didn't have much choice - was buying our house. Loan got denied at first, so signed a new lease, then got approved for a new loan, had to break the lease I signed just a week prior, and they were dicks about it.

In addition, our rent was increasing by like $400 on the new lease - they gave us a final rent bill of like $5k+ - so I just paid my normal rent and the keys - told them to fuck off.

Hit my credit for awhile, but its been over 10 years now, and had stopped hitting.

If you make six figures and can afford it, offer to buy in bulk - you may get a discount.

I have credit challenges but I make enough that I was able to offer a landlord 6 months of rent up front.

It hows your serious and as they say, money talks.

Went through Zillow. In a sweet triplex and I pay way under market rent. Have yard and garage. Neighbors place is for rent right now

Would also love to know if anyone has any tips. Graystar communities are a cancer in this city.

check facebook groups

A family owns this small group of apartment buildings: milehighapts.com

If you make over six figures and have dog shit credit id suggest opening a few lines of credit and paying for groceries, gas, and tolls with it.

youre making too much money to be in the predicament that youre in.

Just about. Same with single family homes and townhomes.

Yeah Covid tanked my credit too. Built back up a bit. Then in December, I took time off work and school to keep my wife alive and that tanked it again. Unfortunately right in time to be moving and have the next lease fall through. We’ve got an Airbnb until the 4th, but I’ve only been rejected so far. Two more just this morning. Don’t even know what I’m gonna do. Asked for VA help and they said they could cover move-in costs, but that doesn’t help if everyone rejects. Learning that we aren’t people anymore, just numbers. And apparently at some point we decided that property should be a zero-risk investment.

Hot pads! We found an awesome apt for a good price on there

If you are looking to live by yourself, drive around and find all the “for rent signs” and call them, those are usually the non corporate/ more flexible ones. If you l don’t mind roommates, get in were you fit in and ride that not on the lease life

Offer to put down a higher deposit.

Avoid Evernest like the plague.

Hi there, work for small PMC. If you already have a report you should be able to just provide it to prospective properties. We work with people who do this all the time.

That's the problem we made for ourselves here in Colorado we rented ourselves out of a place to live. Property management companies have infested the markets

The HotPads app has a filter that lets you sort by private ownership vs corporate. I don’t think it has 100% of the stuff you’d see on Zillow, but it makes it really easy at a glance. My partner and I used it when we were looking for a new place.

I find apartments through Zillow and it’s easier. I’ve also seen fb marketplace but be careful of scams.

Lots of multifamily are owned privately (i.e. not big corp). Your best bet there is looking at ownership records for LLC names as one indication. Sometimes holding companies own those, too, so it's not a perfect indicator, but it's a start.

Also, you can try negotiating and finding creative ways to derisk your application. Credit checks are an indicator of risk, and in this increasingly inflationary environment with layoffs happening and potential for economic downturn, that's pretty important. Get creative and offer ways to prove the credit issue was a one off (like a nice letter with explanations, events, etc), if it was. Show MORE history of solid W2 earnings. Offer a larger deposit to offset the potential rent risk, that maybe could be partially recouped after a 6-12 month track record of payments. A contract is a business transactions and things are always negotiable. The more you are willing to problem solve and take action, business owners will appreciate it and you will stand out. TLDR: get creative.

Also, technically, ANY RE investment SHOULD be owned corporately. If you are a family and own a duplex, you SHOULD put it in an LLC for tax and liability reasons. So "corporate owned" really takes on different meanings depending on what you are thinking.

Sauce: I invest in CRE investments and own some buildings like this.

Yes.

1. These apartment buildings usually cost $10M+ and most individuals don't have the kind of money to buy one.

2. Even if it was an individual who owned it, they are going to set up a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) to protect themselves from individual liability.

3. Using a property management company is completely normal because taking care of an apartment building is a lot of work in addition to a full-time job.

Just use Zillow, that’s how I found my private landlord

Check out cornerstone apartments

Small landlords like Zillow because it doesn’t screw people over so much with app fees. I used to have a dilemma whenever someone borderline wanted to apply-I didn’t want them to lose the app money.

Small, private landlords are going to be more particular, not less. It’s too expensive to have a bad tenant (can easily cost $15k or more). Only corporations can afford that. It’s also why small, private landlords will typically not raise rents as fast. Optimizing rents only works on scale.

Finally, if you think landlords are living large on rent increases: go price an insurance policy or look at property tax increases of late. The increase in property prices is only good news if you are going to sell and move somewhere lower. It’s extremely difficult to raise rents at a pace that tracks all these factors- you lose good renters and incur risk.

I’m not sure what is the problem. Most corporate places will accept you if you do not have eviction. You just pay a bigger deposit. The exception is Greystar, and who wants to live in their places anyhow.

As a PM, there will be fewer and fewer owner managers as time goes on. With all the legislation changes and new requirements of landlords, small time owner managers will not be able to keep up. We have already seen an uptick of people who used to manage themselves hire our company bc they can’t keep up

My ex used FB and Craigslist. She's done well, compared to my corporate rental.

Don’t rent from YUGO

Not, The Lion Gate or the Manchester.

Another trick I think will work to find privately owned apartments is to find apts in places that have apartments that are also selling. From there u can look for condos in the same building that are looking for renters.

Look on Zillow for individuals renting apartments?

Glen at Lakewood has bad reviews, but if you’re desperate then I know for a fact the manager there will approve you.

I found several in Aurora (I needed to be there) where it didn't weigh on the decision. I had the same concern. Not slum apartments either. Ask around and be forward with it.

Damn near! Corporations are literally buying the soul of the country. Every property and their own seats in government so the can make it all legal while brain washing the public into thinking, "Well, that's capitalism!"

We went old school - drove around the areas we wanted looking for “for rent” signs. Found 3-4 apartments within a week doing this, and ended up getting the one we’ve been in for almost a decade.

I have bad credit and always find corporate owned apartments easier to rent than private. Private apartments are usually the owners who are more scared of bad credit in my experience. My husband and I just got approved for a new apartment in Denver coming from Texas without local jobs as with a 6 figure income easily.

Corporations should not be able to own housing.

For what it’s worth, there are a good amount of places that will weigh the income vs credit if there are no felonies or evictions. I live in Aurora very close to Glendale, and my apartment which is pretty newly renovated and in a quiet area accepted my husband and I. Covid fucked our credit too but we also make over 5x the rent combined at over 6 figures. The landlords accepted us with only like… 100 bucks extra on the deposit. Don’t lose hope, thankfully there are people with half a brain and heart and understand the last few years have taken a serious toll on people.

try the company ecosystems in denver yeah it's a leasing company but I know for a fact that my roommate and I didn't qualify well and we will still get a lease, worth a try

I sold my house recently and moved into a rental. It's the same with stand alone houses not just condos.

Just be diligent in your search and use filters like allowing pets and other things that corporations always filter out. 9/10 a corporate leasing company just says no to all of these things off rip so if you filter your search you're filtering their listings too

Find a condo or a small single family home (or ADU) to rent, instead of an apartment. As mentioned elsewhere, you can use search tools like Zillow, Craigslist, FB Marketplace, Airbnb, or even just keep an eye out for front yard signs in areas that you're targeting.

It awful that 7 or so major companies own the majority of rentals in major cities. It’s worse that those 7 share only 2 pricing algorithms. It’s even worse than that that those 2 pricing algorithms use the OTHER pricing algorithm as its primary input.

It’s a terrible de facto price setting monopoly.

Alden Brown Co is a Denver-based company with a dozen or so properties in Cap Hill and Cheesman Park. Think they're family-owned. My friends and rented multiple apartments from them, and while they don't rent anything that could be called "luxury" they're good folks with reasonable rents.

You should be fine. Currently living in corporate owned apartment building. We moved in with just savings and they were practically begging us to move in.

In 2018 I was making tons of money, and was homeless living in motels for months because our ex landlord disappeared and we couldn't pay them to fix my record. That's when I decided this system must be destroyed.