Need to rent a house in a tight market. Seeking tips and strategy.

I'd expose your substantial cash reserves to a potential landlord, and say you're "semi-retired." Seriously, overshare on the financial side -- show them (in person, you don't have to let them have copies) the value of your assets not just currently, but consistently over the past 3+years. Show them a copy of the deed to your house, and maybe a picture if it has nice curb appeal. Bring a written copy of your dogwalker's reference with you, too, along with his/her contact info. Say you have a lovable old dog who is shy around strangers. Offer to pay an extra security deposit for the pet (a landlord of a house, vs. an apartment, doesn't really care about your dog's interpersonal relationships, just his potential to cause damage to the property). Say you're looking for a year lease (that's much more standard). When the time comes to actually draw up paperwork, you can ask if a shorter term is available -- by that point they've already mentally approved you and are eager just to get the deal done. In general, my advice is to head off any of their worries proactively, before they even have a chance to express doubt. Be confident, friendly, and don't even mention things as "I know you might be worried about x, but...."

I agree with Lyn Never. Since your realtor is going to make a commission when your house sells, have them find you a place. They would much rather show an unoccupied listing, because they can take people by any time of night or day without making an appointment for a showing. They will also probably want you to be happy, so you might end with something a lot nicer that you never would have heard about otherwise.

You may be overthinking here. But here're some tips anyway. -Impressions are definitely very, very crucial in sealing a rent agreement. Your being older and (presumably) amiable will definitely help. Try to meet with the landlord to view the property rather than being shown it by a third party. Wear decent clothes, bring notepad and pen, and carry information that would allow you to start a credit check (ID photocopies, possibly bank statement[this will definitely help even if you have to expose that info; just blot out any account #s], checkbook and ~$60 in cash for credit check payments). -Pay stubs is definitely a problem. Most places require 3x rent pre-tax monthly income. Getting past this'll depend on how substantial your cash reserves are, and whether they can get you through the rental period. -Your dog's size is the biggest factor here, not his reputation or demeanor; many of the places that allow dogs will have something like a <30 lb limit -You're renting in an off-season (if you rent in the next few months before spring) and this can help you, as well as hurt you. A. There'll be less places on the market :( B. Landlords will be more eager to seal a deal. -The 6-mo to 1 year lease length IS an issue. One of the ways you can ply a landlord, whether it be to consider you over competition, or to lower your rent slightly, etc. is by extending the lease. Landlords LOVE longer leases. One way to combat this may be to offer a greater front deposit (i.e. 3 months vs. 1) because they also LOVE instant $. -Your having owned a house for so long is a big +++. You can use this to show you're capable of managing the upkeep of a property- meaning less work for the landlord. I'd mention it somehow(if you can be slick about this it'd be great; i.e. "Yeah, we loved our old house after all the work we put into it, but it's just too much for us at this point.") -One last thing to consider- for such a brief period of time, why not an apartment? Cheaper, more readily available; plenty of apartments will have room for the two of you and a dog. Many have dedicated dog runs. Good luck!!

We moved in a hurry and had some issues - three dogs, unemployed husband, a mortgage - so we used a Realtor to find a rent house. That did limit us to MLS rental listings, but I found that a lot of houses I saw for rent on Zillow, for example, would then show up on the MLS 3 weeks later (and get rented in a day) because the landlord found out that people are flakes. Our Realtor got us this place (with $50 knocked off the rent) I think mostly because she was a professional and our property manager is also a Realtor and it was just way easier than dealing with regular flaky people. I think us having owned a house was a huge advantage, too, and she made a big deal about it for us. So that's worth a shot. But offering multiple months' rent should be a card you think about playing if necessary. Maybe not the year, but 3-6 months. It's not like you're not going to have to pay that money eventually, you're not really out anything except a sliver of interest.

We rented in Portland in the middle of summer this past year, after walking away from our home. We had substantial cash reserves and I remained employed, but I think it was the preparedness and the cash reserves that got us the place. When we went to look at places we were prepared to rent on the spot, both of us had our credit reports available, pre-filled out rental agreements (where possible) and checkbooks handy. We also brought our kid which helped demonstrate the whole stable tenant thing. Most landlords we talked to wanted someone to rent for a year minimum, we were prepared to prepay rent for 6 months or do a larger deposit to get over the stigma of walking away from our home. No one ever checked my employment history, although I set up the service we use at work to handle that. I wouldn't say you're unemployed, I would simply say you're transitioning in to a new career but have substantial cash reserves to facilitate the trafer, you don't have to show them everything, enough to cover the lease or half of it would probably be enough. I find renting from home owners to be dramatically easier than renting from an agency or management company.

FYI Realtors get a finder's fee for rentals, from the landlord. It's no sales commission, but it's probably more than I make for a day or two of work.

My wife and I had some of your same issues when we rented in North Seattle four years ago (one of us was jobless, no recommendations because we had been out of the country, sort of weird credit for that reason, too, but a pretty big amount of cash). Our approach was to: -attempt to lease from actual, in person landlords, not through management companies (we found our potential places via Craigslist); -signing a year's lease with option for month to month tenancy after that--I think getting a shorter lease than a year might be trouble even if you did have references, jobs, etc.; -creating a short "pitch" that we gave to each potential landlord when we first contacted them to introduce ourselves (Hi! We're two 32 year-old professionals who are returning to Seattle after several years abroad...) -knowing exactly what we wanted and being ready to move on it as soon as it was available. In a tight market as soon as we saw the place we knew we wanted, we told the landlord and were able to hand him a check for the deposit. We wanted to make his life easy and solve his problem of wondering who his next tenants would be. If the issue of employment comes up, how much of your rent can you prepay? This would alleviate a lot of a potential landlord's concern, I'd imagine.