Is This a Scam? How to Spot a Fake Apartment Listing

When you’re on the apartment hunt, you may feel that you’re on a mission to find a hidden gem: a spacious unit in the right neighborhood with a below market price. Spotting one after hours of scrolling other units that are out of price range or don’t meet your standards is exhilarating — but what if it’s too good to be true? 

That’s a common phrase associated with rental scams: Too good to be true. Often, scammers will bait renters by posting attractive listings for low prices. Once they’ve gotten inquiries on a fake listing, they may convince potential renters, desperate to lock down a great deal, to send them payments or sensitive information like a social security number or bank account number. And after the transaction is completed, they disappear.

One way to avoid scam listings is to use the ApartmentAdvisor Verified Listings program, available now in Boston and New York City (coming soon to other markets!). So, if you see a listing on our site with the “Verified” badge, you can rest assured that the unit exists and has been listed by a legitimate brokerage.

Otherwise, read the below guide, where we outline how to spot a potentially fake apartment listing.

If you are seeing the same image over and over again on different apartment listings with different addresses, this is one sign that you’ve run into a rental listing scam. It’s true that a legitimate real estate agent or landlord may be using the same image to promote distinct, but similar units in the same building. However, those listings would have the same address. If you see the same image on different listing services based in different cities, that’s another red flag.

If you’re dubious about a real estate listing, one easy trick to verify its legitimacy is a reverse image search. Save the images to your computer, open up a Google search, and upload the pictures to the search bar. This will check whether the images appear elsewhere on the internet. If you see the same picture showing up on many different apartment listings, then it’s a strong sign that the listing you saw is a scam.

This is a tough pill to swallow: If an apartment’s rent price seems too low to be true, it probably is. While there are really great deals out there, they’re uncommon — especially if a unit is being listed for, say, less than half the typical cost per square foot for your desired neighborhood.

One way to decipher if a listed rent price is just too low is to find comparable listings in the area. Many listings will include square footage along with rent price, which you can use to determine an average cost per square foot in the area that you’re interested in. On ApartmentAdvisor, you can also find daily median rent prices for 100 major cities in the US. In some cities, like Boston, you can even find the median rent prices broken down by neighborhood.  

Keep in mind that a low rent price is not a definite sign of a scam. If everything else about an apartment listing checks out, you can still try sending an inquiry on an apartment with a price below market rate. Just be on the lookout for other common rental scam warning signs, like if the agent or landlord tries to convince you to send a first month’s rent payment or large holding fee before you sign a lease or if there is no tenant screening process. Legitimate landlords and property managers will almost always want to run some sort of credit score and background check, contact references, and confirm your income when reviewing your rental application. Learn more about avoiding rental scams when communicating with realtors or brokers here.

Ideally, all rental unit listings would be written with care and free of typos or grammar mistakes. However, this isn’t always the case. It’s not uncommon for a listing to include a few typos here or there — but a misplaced comma is much different than a listing written with all caps, many misspelled words, or excessive punctuation. If you see an apartment listing and it feels like whoever wrote the description is yelling at you, that’s one sign that you may be looking at a housing scam. Another is if the description includes details that are clearly not visible in the image, like if it claims there are hardwood floors in a unit where the photos only show carpeting. Descriptions that contain poor grammar and inaccurate information and that try to convey an extreme sense of urgency may be a sign that you are not looking at legitimate listings.

On many apartment rental search sites, you are able to see the name of the listing agent who posted the apartment — or the name of the landlord, if they posted the listing themselves. You can confirm that at least the agent or property owner of the listing is real by searching public records. Where you conduct this search will vary by state, but because real estate agents are licensed professionals, their license number and the status of their license should be available publicly. For example, on the Mass.gov website, there is a portal where you can check the status of any real estate agent or broker’s license. Real estate agents also need to work under a broker, so if a listing includes an agent’s name as well as a brokerage name, you can search the brokerage’s website to find evidence that they really work there.

Similar online search portals also exist for property and land owners. You should be able to look up any address in the United States and find out who owns the property. Before you sign a lease, always make sure that you know who the legitimate landlord of the rental property is.

If you think you’ve been the victim of a rental scam, it’s important to alert the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to the fraudster immediately. You can submit a complaint to them by phone or online through the Internet Crime Complaint Center. You can also contact your local law enforcement.

It can be tricky to spot a scam apartment listing. While the red flags we’ve pointed out may work as guidelines, they are not foolproof indicators that a listing is real or fake. When searching for an apartment, always be on the lookout for something that gives you a negative reaction — and never transfer money upfront before seeing an apartment in person, confirming its ownership, and receiving a countersigned lease. It is also wise to only transfer money in ways that are traceable; for example, sending a check rather than handing over cash or completing a wire transfer. For even more information on avoiding rental scams, check out our full guide.