When you first move into a new area and are looking for a home, you can’t exactly choose to be homeless. Unless you want to drop $100+ a day on hotels, you probably are going to have to find temporary housing. And that means renting, either an apartment, a townhouse, or a home. Although some may consider doing 3 and 6 month leases during the winter and springtime, most properties will not consider doing less than 12 month leases. What options do you have if you sign one of these leases but find your dream home and want to move in before your lease ends? Subleasing your unit may be the best option.
Why Sublease?
Trapped in a long lease you’d rather get out of, you many consider simply moving out of the apartment and just moving into your home. But the fact is, if you ever need to rent again, it will be exponentially harder to find a place with an eviction on your record. Most places will either straight up not accept you, or will make you pay 1-2 extra months worth of deposit, or make you wait until it’s 5 years old. And most will not care how old it is if you do not pay it off. The easiest way to avoid having a broken lease or eviction on your record, is obviously to sublease your unit.
Subleasing Through Craigslist
What’s the best way to go about the task of subleasing? There are companies that specialize in this, but your best bet is going to be to try and post some ads on Craigslist yourself to find someone. But you need to remember to do it officially, and make sure that the apartment knows someone else will be taking over the lease.
It may seem smart to not tell them anything, and just collect rent from the new tenant and pay the apartment yourself to avoid any subletting fees, but that will leave you open to liability. If you do that, and the new tenant does not pay, then you will be on the hook for the entire amount of the rent. But if you switch over the lease into the new tenants name, then if they do not pay it isn’t on you but on the person who took over the lease. There are a lot of horror stories about finding someone on Craigslist who moves in and then refuses to pay by the end of the month. So always do it through official channels.
Subleasing Through Other Channels
There are also quite a few Facebook groups built just for finding someone to sublease your place. Posting on your personal social networks can sometimes work out, but with real estate everything is timing. The tried and true way is to post some ads on Craigslist, and have anyone who is taking over your sublease turn in an application the the property, so you do not have to worry about anything like criminal history, credit scores or bad rental history. You can also post ads at local coffee shops, but once again Craigslist is the way to go.
In our next article, we will be going over some of the things to keep in mind about subletting, subleasing vs new leases, and ways to get out of apartments without having to find someone to take over your unit when you move out.
