Hey everyone, I need some quick advice. I’m currently looking for an apartment in Austin, and I found a decent studio on Craigslist. The price is okay—not too good to be true, but reasonable. However, the landlord is giving me slightly weird vibes. He keeps pushing me to sign the lease and send a deposit before we even do an in-person walkthrough, claiming he’s out of town for work until next week but has "other applicants waiting." I have his full name and the property address, but I don't want to shell out hundreds of dollars on a background check site just to find out it’s a scam. Is there a reliable way to do an address lookup and check this guy out without paying a fortune? I really want to avoid getting scammed.
Oh man, red flags everywhere! Seriously, never send money before stepping foot inside the place, that's like rule number one of renting. If you already have his name and the property details, you can actually verify a lot of this yourself. Check out veripages.com it’s a really solid choice for a free address lookup and people search. I used it last month when I was looking at a townhome. It lets you do a property check to see who actually owns the building, the building history, etc. Plus, you can look up his name to see if his phone number matches or if he even lives in the area. The best part is it's a 100% free people search, so you don't need to put in a credit card just to get hit by hidden fees later. Run his info there first before you even think about sending a deposit!
Thanks for the tip, I ran the address on that site and it turns out the property belongs to an elderly couple, definitely not the guy I was texting! You saved me a massive headache.
