Think Buying a Home in DC is Hard?

I recently made the mistake of helping clients find a rental in the DC area—and I’ll just say it: I barely made it out with my sanity. I don’t normally handle rentals. I focus on home sales. But this one favor reminded me exactly why I steer clear… and why the rental market here is a full-on nightmare. Low inventory, outrageous requirements, zero communication from listing agents, and landlords treating renters like they’re lucky just to be considered. It’s like The Hunger Games—but with less charm and more application fees. If you’re looking for a rental—or just wondering why it feels impossible—stick around. Because by the end of this video, you’ll know the real reason the system is broken… and what you can do to survive it.

Clients contacted me with the intention of buying a home. They went back and forth as they weren’t sure what route they wanted to take, but they own other properties in different areas and weren’t sure DC was a long term move for them. They decided to rent. That’s usually when I see myself out, but they were super stressed out trying to manage all the logistics of a more than cross-country move from Hawaii to DC, getting their kids into schools and daycare. Plus they were so dang nice I was like, “Okay mama, I see the stress on your face.” (She was sitting in the middle of a pile of boxes on our Facetime call.) I said, “Don’t worry, we’re going to do this.” I was confident, and little did I know, I had no reason to be.

Now that we’re on the other end of this, I can tell you I have no idea how anyone does this. As my clients said, “It’s easier to buy than it is to rent there.” Indeed, it is. There is a constant influx of people who are moving to DC for a shorter term and for whom buying doesn’t make sense. Unfortunately, in the DC Area rental market, it’s time-wasting amateur hour with the process of finding and renting a home.

Not All Rentals are Listed in our Multiple List Service

The first thing to understand is there are multiple places to find rentals. Sometimes people find rentals listed on MBO or Military by Owner. I looked at a couple of these homes for my clients. The owners were never local. They lived in the home at one point in their lives, but were now in another dimension and they had not been to the property recently. 

Then there’s the rentals on Zillow or Trulia. My client sent me a lot of these and every single one that wasn’t listed with an agent was a disaster. From houses that were already rented, and the status wasn’t changed, to houses that looked like a hoarder lived there to the inability to get an appointment to tour, chasing these is really difficult. I felt like I was losing my mind playing Wack-a-mole with all these different property owners.

With both MBO and the portals like Zillow or Trulia, the reason they are listed here is that the owner doesn’t want to pay a commission. This is because truly the one month’s rent that is split between the tenant’s agent (at 25% in many cases) and the landlord’s agent (75%) is what they are trying to save. Just paying it would solve so many issues, but some people prefer to save that money or do it themselves. At best, it creates a lot more work for the tenant and their agent if they have one. At worst, well, we’ll get to that.

Then there’s the Property Management Companies. These are similarly difficult to deal with. First, they never answer the phone or email because property management is by its nature, incredibly busy. Second, they force things upon you that make them extra money but are things you may not want. One example is when they force you to join some type of “Resident” program that you pay for, but they cover certain repairs. With the properties my husband and I own, we pay for the repairs. The property managers just coordinate them. 

The MLS is the other place to find rentals. This is the best-case scenario. Usually having a licensed agent on the other side of the transaction means you at least have a fighting chance of getting someone professional. They may post professional photos, answer the phone and easily allow for appointment scheduling.  But even this isn’t a cakewalk. That drive-by photo from the car, and the dark photos where you can’t even get a good look at the house, those happen too. Why is that?

Not All Listing Agents Who Handle Rentals Are…Normal

Yes, you heard it here. It’s totally hit or miss with agents who handle rentals. This is a different structure of our business. With sales, we procure the client, work through their home search, get to know them very personally, secure the home, get them through the contract, to closing and beyond. You could easily work with a client for many months or years before you are paid. This is a long-term relationship and it takes work to cultivate and maintain it.

With rentals, it’s more transactional. There’s less relationship building and business building, especially if this is just the part of the market the agent works in. I know agents who prefer rentals because it’s quick money. Show the client some places, they decide, apply and get approved and have to put up one month’s rent right away. This is written to the agent’s brokerage and the parties are paid when the lease is signed – not at move-in. This means you get some fly-by-night kind of feeling with some of these agents. They are only in it for the quick bucks and don’t have what it takes to build the long-term relationships – or wait months and months to get paid.

My clients applied to one rental, and I was in communication with the agent who was in fact, a doofus, and he said he sent the application over to his clients and would get back to me after he spoke with his clients. Then the status changed to pending. I called him. He said, “Oh I didn’t call you? Well, I meant to. They rented it to someone else.” Loser.

Condition of Overpriced Rental Homes is Deplorable

When there’s an agent involved in listing a rental, I almost never find the price to be outrageous. Usually, the agent has done their homework and comes up with a price that makes sense. 

When you have owners who list and price their own property, it’s usually what I would call, what’s that word… “delusional.” The price they want makes no sense for the condition of the home. As I rang doorbell at one home, I was taking video of the siding falling off the house and the 4 foot weeds in the yard. The house looked abandoned. When I got inside, it was no better. The house smelled terribly, the deck was falling off the back of the house and the backyard looked like a dump. It was obvious the owner hadn’t been in or near his house in a long time. 

Rentals Get Snapped Up in Hours

This is the hardest thing for people to understand. There is no rhyme or reason to the rental market. People will apply sight-unseen to multiple properties. The times I have listed rentals, I do not take applications from people who have not seen it in person or via video. But many agents will take these applications and process them so they can get it rented quickly. Does this mean you may have to apply to a house that you barely know the condition of? Yes. It happens. Don’t panic. You just need a better plan.

Intrusive Landlords

I cannot express how many idiots I had to deal with. I understand that people trying to rent their homes are trying to save the one-month commission. But almost all have no idea how to do this efficiently or correctly. They create a whole host of other issues because they don’t play by rules. One landlord asked how old my client’s children were. I vaguely said, “Oh they are little.” She still asked how old. I said I didn’t know. When she finally said she would lease to my clients, she wanted to have a phone call with them. This is where it went off the rails.

She asked them on a video chat to show her what their current house looked like. She wanted to see what kind of housekeepers they were. Then when she called their references, she asked their boss – at the job where they hold a top-secret security clearance – what the reason was for the move and how old their children were. It was flagged. Lady, come on. My clients didn’t take the house. She called me to ask why and I said, “YOU CAN’T ASK THEM HOW OLD THEIR KIDS ARE!” She said she wanted to put it on the lease. I said, “Why are you asking their boss?”

She also wanted to build in an escalation to a three-year lease. I understand why, but then, why would someone bother to sign a three-year lease? They could just sign for one year.

My clients did not like this approach at all and they chose a different rental. Those owners asked similarly intrusive questions. They wanted a copy of my client’s military orders. Why? No one should have to prove why they are moving somewhere and why should they have to? The landlords also said there were some low mortgage balances, so they wanted to ensure the military housing allowance would cover the rent and see the leases for those houses that they have rented. Understandable but it still felt intrusive. 

When it was all said and done, we toured 10 homes. It was an unbelievable amount of work.  From phone calls with incredibly flaky owners, property managers and other agents, the poor condition of many homes, the pricing being inflated, and the competition, I can officially say that it’s easier for people to buy a home.