We're trying to find a place. We're Stuck.

[Diego Garcia]

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, but I thought I might be helped by perspectives on here.

We're just looking for a place. I've got a family, and due to covid, we had to leave our last state so my wife could continue her studies. We've been airBNBing for over a year, but we want to settle somewhere and we're now looking for a SFH for ourselves, and rental properties have just been skyrocketing. We're pretty flexible, but the main areas we're looking at are Arizona, Utah, and Idaho.

At first we were looking to get a USDA loan to buy anywhere, my credit score is 770, but as a 1099 worker and inconsistent income, it doesn't seem I'll qualify for anything. So now we're settling to rent somewhere.

The thing is, we're dream tenants. All our 30 reviews on airBNB are perfect and we have references. But after contacting property after property, no luck.

So I'm wondering how to stand out. I'm offering landlords a full 6 months up front on a 1 year lease. Do you think that would help? What else can we do?

[Ron Brady]

Hi Diego.

Sorry to hear this.  As landlords of 5 properties, we're seeing heightened demand.

I am going to venture into a sensitive topic.  My wife is mixed race and very light skinned. I am a dark skinned African American. Our past experiences with buying, selling and securing appraisals on properties suggest to us that if we can we now have my wife do all the in person work and I try to not be visible during any transactions. Its been our experience that we sensed "something going on" at times when I have been involved, e.g. profuse phone enthusiasm dims markedly when a potential tenant arrives at the house and I greet them.  This has happened about 10-20% of the time in our situation.

i'm not sure if this may apply to you or your wife in any way, but I share it as our real, and unfortunate, situation. Best wishes.