Is That Sacramento Home for Rent or For Sale?

You’re not alone to ask is a Sacramento home for rent or for sale? © Big Stock Photo

Rarely a day goes by that I don’t receive a phone call from a potential tenant inquiring about a Sacramento home they believe is for rent when that home is really for sale. Is the home for rent or for sale? Never mind that there is a big honkin’ FOR SALE sign in the yard or they can find the home elsewhere online for sale. Part of the problem is the public tries to view homes on Trulia or Zillow when many of those are already sold or maybe they were never for sale in the first place, like a preforeclosure, so I can understand the confusion.

Crooks out of Nigeria or just about anywhere, really, download photographs from a website and then create their own FOR RENT advertising. It’s easy to do. Now they have created the question: is the home for rent or for sale? Just right-click on that photograph and you’ve stolen it. All photographs online are copyrighted by the photographer or website owner (unless indicated otherwise), and it’s theft to download and use a copyrighted photo. But it doesn’t stop dingbats from doing it. I see theft all the time blatant in blogs by other real estate agents: they just swipe a photo they like and never consider its origin or fair-use rights.

But it’s even worse when for sale photographs are swiped by crooks and used to deceive innocent people into handing over money. After the crooks download the photo and create the ad, they respond to potential tenants by concocting some cockamamie story and asking for money. If a home would rent for $2,000, they will advertise it for $800, and people think, Oh, my, what a steal, and they send money. They can kiss that money goodbye.

You can report the crooks to the authorities but cybercrime seems difficult to prosecute, especially when it’s for such a little amount. Just don’t get suckered into it.

If something seems too good to be true, it generally is too good to be true. I’ve never had a person ask is that home for rent or for sale when the home is for rent. The fact that you’re asking the question probably means the home is only for sale. Sacramento agents don’t want to waste time listing a home for sale if the owner is undecided as to whether she will rent it.