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Rentailor – Rent That Fits

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I’ve been on both sides of the rental process. Both as renter and as landlord. And many of the frustrations in this process can be solved by making it easier for renters to find my property and submit an application to view or rent.

Being a landlord is frustrating. But, let’s face it. I hate being a renter even more. My husband and I have been discussing purchasing a new home, and top of the discussion list is how we avoid having to rent during this process. So many of our friends have had to rent for a month or so while they were between houses. Or they sell their house, rent, and then start looking for a new home. The one thing we really want to avoid is renting. Why? Because it’s so frustrating.

I have to call each apartment complex for details, fill out their application, have my credit run a gazillion times, and eventually finally get to look at apartments (or houses).

I know as a landlord, people looking at my houses really don’t want to fill out and pay for ANOTHER credit check, because they’re getting tired of filling out all that paperwork. Plus, paying for application after application is just expensive.

So, here’s where Rentailor comes in, and solves this problem:

  1. Run your credit once. You only have to fill out a credit and rental application once. Once approved, you enter what you’re looking for and look at available rental properties on their site. If you see something you want, you click a button to contact them and submit your application, which has already been processed. No need to fill out more paperwork for every single place you might want to rent. You can submit your application to multiple properties with just a few clicks.
  2. Properties bid for you. Property managers can see your application, and if they have a property that they think you’ll like they can make you an offer. Not only are you looking for something to rent. Property managers are looking to rent to you. Rentailor is all about helping you find what you want for the price you want.
  3. Pay rent online. Once you find your property, Rentailor has a secure online system that you can use to pay your rent online. So even if you’re renting from a private owner or smaller company that doesn’t have an online system, Rentailor has you covered.
  4. Don’t see anything you want, you can ask Rentailor to help you out. They already have your application and can help you find the property that you want to rent.

Rentailor takes the frustration out of renting.

Check them out on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and YouTube as well!

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D is for Different

Recently, on a homeschool group I’m in, a Mom considering homeschooling asked a question that generated a lot of discussion.

“What’s a typical homeschool day look like?”

The responses all varied, but every experienced homeschool mom agreed that there’s truly no “typical” day.

You may homeschool with a strict schedule or you maybe be super flexible. It’s all about how your kids learn best and what works best for your family.

So, it made me ponder how homeschooling is different. Every day is different. Every child is different. And how you as the parent teach is different. One key part of successfully homeschooling is embracing the “different” and helping each child truly succeed.

For example. Here’s my schedule last week.

Monday: Homeschool co-op – leave house at 8. After co-op meet a potential renter over at our rental property. Home around 5:30.

Tuesday: Show house at 10. Run errands. Home at noon. Eat lunch. Do school.

Wednesday: Start school. Offer 2nd grader choice of staying home with Dad and doing her school or bringing it in the car. She opts for the car. Show house at 11. Run errands. Eat lunch out. Show house again at 1. Home around 2. Back out for piano lessons at 3. Finish school around 5.

Thursday: Morning meeting at 9. Home and start school at 11. Husband is hungry. Eat lunch, paint airplanes, take baths (to wash off paint). Finish school. Leave at 3 for ballet lessons.

Friday: Home all day, school done by noon.

Is my child learning? Yes! In fact, she learns more with all these interruptions. Sitting her down for 2 hrs straight and doing bookwork is tiring. But you do it in 30 minute sprints and she does better work and remembers more of what she’s learning.

Is any day typical? No, not really. But, that’s life. If she learned better by sitting down and doing it all at once, I would make more of an effort to do that. But since long sessions seems frustrating, I take the opportunities to break it up and keep her interested.

And I take advantage of something unique that homeschooling offers to my family. It lets my children live life with me. I’ve explained the concept of a rental property so many times this past few weeks – we have a rental that I’m finding new tenants for – and answered questions like, why would we let someone live in our house? If we own the house why don’t we live there? How do we own a house that we don’t live in? People pay us money to live in our house? I could just tell them about the concept of renting, but to see it in action, it’s more real to them.

So, if your homeschooling, embrace the different. Because every family is different. Every parent is different. Every child is different. And homeschooling lets you enjoy those differences.

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Totally Random

Wow, so, I missed my usual Tuesday post by three days! And I just remembered today! Of course, with my crazy busy summer, I’m not totally surprised. I even has a post planned, it just didn’t get typed up. So, be watching for my post on Tuesday about our experience with our first pagent.

Some weeks, like this week, I’m grateful that I like to plan. For the past two weeks I’ve been running back and forth from my house to our rental house (with the kids) showing the house to all kinds of people – and I really mean, all kinds of people… Anyways, hopefully we have a family signing a lease tomorrow. So all my running around will pay off!

Back to planning. We’re starting some school on Monday – my plan is to do school on the days we aren’t busy (until our local public school year starts and then we’ll do all 5 days a week) which will create some extra days we can take off for fun things like the water park with the family. I sent in my registration weeks before the deadline (which was yesterday) and I ordered all my school books weeks ago (received the last one yesterday). Because if I had to order them this week, it never would have happened.

I only wish I could preemptively do housework and then my house would be clean today. Today we have a day at home, and aside from going stir-crazy, it’s been a good day. My kitchen is clean, the baby’s room is clean, my bedroom is clean (well almost, the roomba is finishing up for me), laundry is going, and I can’t decide, do I tackle the girl’s room or the rec room next? I’m not sure which one is more daunting. Maybe I’ll do the rec room while the girls clean their room and then help them finish up – but, who am I kidding, if I’m downstairs, they probably won’t do any cleaning!

I need to go finish a few things before baby boy wakes up from his nap.