When you are about to rent an accommodation, be careful with scammers ready to fool users. As professionals, here we have some tips for you to avoid room rental scams in Madrid.
Moving to a new city sounds so thrilling: think about all the things you’re going to experience, the activities, the food you’ll try, the international people you’ll meet, the new places you’ll visit.
But when it comes to organising the settle in your new home, things may need a little effort. Looking for a room for rent is the one of the first steps to do and you have to be very careful because, unfortunately, on the Internet there’s plenty of (very talented and smart) scammers and it’s hard to see them coming! Therefore, we are here to help you to find out when someone is trying to fool you, with the best practices about how to avoid room rental scams in Madrid.
How to be careful with room rental scams
Avoiding rental scams online is like playing the minesweeper game. It’s a sad truth, but fact is that many young internationals get easily fooled by fake landlords, because they rush when renting a room and don’t pay attention to red flags or details.
And here are some tips to survive the Internet and avoid room rental scams in Madrid!
1. Trustworthy room rental websites and platforms
The most popular way to rent a room in Madrid is online. There’s plenty of websites and portals that commercialise apartments and rooms for rent; thing is that you don’t have to trust all the ads that you find. The first thing you can do to prove if the website is trustworthy or not is to look for reviews on Google. If someone has a good or bad experience will share it on the Internet for sure! Moreover, you can search the profile of the rental company on social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. to check out their history, ethics and reliability.
When it comes to a particular landlord, if he/she hurries you to pay or gets annoyed when you ask for more information, photos or videos of the accommodation, this could be a red flag for scammer!
2. Careful when paying in advance money for the rent
When you book a room for rent online, just like when you book a flight or a hotel, you’ll be asked to pay a certain amount in advance; it might be the first month rent, the deposit or an agency fee.
If you rent through an official website ran by a rental company you shouldn’t worry about scams (however, make sure to read all the payment details). But when it comes to renting rooms via portals or dealing directly with the landlord, make sure to sign something or use a safe payment method such as Paypal, cause you are basically sending money without having any guarantee in your hands.
3. Very cheap rooms in Madrid can be scams
Madrid room rental market is literally blooming. Along the last years, always more international students and professionals moved to Madrid for their experience abroad. This led to a consistent increase of the price on the rent of the room.
When you will start your flat hunting, you may find some ads offering nice rooms for a very cheap price and you could think you’ve found the greatest deal of your life. This would be real luck (and very few times it can happen that a landlord doesn’t even need that money and he/she just rents the room at a super low price. But this is quite rare).
In the very centre of Madrid and in the main areas (the ones inside the M-30 highway) the lowest price you can find for a room is 400/450€ up to 650€. It may vary depending on the location, size of the accommodation, room and flat features and housing services included (wifi, cleaning service, maintenance, etc.).
4. Set up a visit before you rent the room
It’s okay to be scrupulous in order to avoid scams or just to get the right accommodation that suits you best. There are a couple strategies you may consider: if you have the chance and a budget that allows it, you could travel to Madrid, see yourself the wide offer of accommodations and pick up the room that you like. A second option is to get to know the landlord or the flat managers and arrange an online visit with them.
