It can be incredibly nerve-wracking signing on to rent an apartment that you’ve never seen in person and sending large sums of money to someone you’ve never met. It definitely sets us on edge every time we sign a new lease while travel nursing, because there is always some risk involved. However, since starting travel nursing we’ve developed a few simple rules to help minimize that risk and avoid getting scammed. So far so good!

Check out my blog post about How to Find Housing While Travel Nursing for more tips on what to look for and where to look!

“meet” your prospective landlord

First, always make sure to “meet” the landlord/owner/property manager, ideally through video call. It helps to personally talk to the person and see a bit of what they’re like, and also if they’re willing to take the time to do a call (they should be). This gives them an opportunity to get to know you and for you to get to know them. As with an rental situation, you want to get to know whoever will be your point person for questions or issues that come up to see how friendly, reliable, clear, and prompt they are. On this video call, or another, we ask to see the apartment live.

insist on seeing the apartment live in a video call

Second, don’t just go off of pictures posted online of the apartment. Ask to see it by live video call. This can be tough if someone is currently renting the unit, but normally when you rent an apartment and are leaving, the landlord does walkthroughs with the next prospective renters, so this really isn’t a strange ask at all. If the landlord isn’t willing to do this, it could be a sign that they’re not someone you want to rent from because they’re not helpful, proactive, and/or the apartment isn’t in as good of a shape as in the pictures. If the landlord gives a legitimate-seeming reason as to why this isn’t possible, go with your gut, but in general this shouldn’t be difficult to get if there isn’t an underlying issue.

never send money without a signed lease

Third, NEVER send any money without a signed lease. We’ve been asked to do this before, and refused. Honestly, if a landlord is asking for the deposit before the lease is signed that can be a big red flag. In our case, we refused to send any money before the lease was signed by both parties, but then trusted our gut and still went with the apartment. It was pretty concerning at first, but we had spoken to the landlord on the phone to get to know her a bit more (see our first tip above) which helped us to feel more comfortable trusting her and moving forward with the apartment.

do your research

Fourth, do your research. Typically, we try to find our prospective landlord/property manager on Facebook to do a rudimentary check of their profile or other online searches to confirm that they really do have ties to the property they’re saying they own/manage. We are thorough in asking questions and having multiple phone calls plus the video walk through. We also like to check out the property on Google Maps and any realty websites where it’s posted. Watch out for inconsistencies, stock images, unwillingness to answer questions or show live video (or at least updated pictures) of the apartment. It can be worth it to also research the neighbourhood if you’re unfamiliar with the area.

trust your gut

Fifth, trust your gut. We’ve said no to many places simply because we got a bad feeling from either the pictures or the landlord. It’s unfortunate and can make the housing process more difficult to be this cautious and picky, but it’s far better to be safe than sorry when it comes to this in our opinion.

---

Like I’ve mentioned before, travel nurses are at risk for being heavily penalized for breaking their contract (sometimes to the tune of $5000). There is no wording you will likely be able to get into your contract protecting you in the situation that you were scammed and have no place to live. You are still bound to your contract, and there’s no guarantee that the hospital (or agency) will be understanding if you have a housing crisis that makes it impossible for you to fulfill your contract.

This can make it seriously high stakes when you’re looking for housing while travel nursing. It’s already a difficult and stressful time as finding furnished housing is TOUGH, especially if you’re travel nursing with pets, and you often have only a months notice before your next contract begins. I hope this post helps you to know what to watch out for and how to be extra thorough when looking for housing. We wish you all the best with your travel nursing adventures! Check out some more of my blog posts for more travel nursing tips!