If you’re looking for a short or mid-term rental in Tampa Bay, there are a few things you should be aware of to ensure you get a good deal and don’t fall victim to scammers. Let’s explore what to look out for, and how Ready Stays is here for your month-to-month rental needs in Tampa.
Tampa Bay Neighborhoods
Tampa Bay is very neighborhood-specific. What we mean by that is, although you can look at nice photos online of the interiors of places to stay and the amenities nearby, you’ll still be unfamiliar with the surrounding neighborhood until you actually arrive and have a chance to explore.
Our tip is to get the precise address of the potential place to stay and use it to do ‘Street View’ on Google Maps. By doing this, you’ll be able to walk around the area virtually. Be sure to check out the neighborhood’s shops, restaurants, apartment communities, larger homes, and transport links nearby. You’ll quickly be able to tell if the area is well taken care of or not.
At Ready Stays, we only provide rentals in what are considered the safer, more savory neighborhoods. As well as this, the majority of our rentals are in mid-to-luxury apartment communities with gated parking and, in some cases, courtesy patrol officers.
Who’s Offering the Rental?
Who are they? Is it a company, or privately owned? This is important, because private owners can run B&Bs like guest houses, but don’t have to stick to the same rules and regulations as companies. They’re also less likely to have proper commercial liability insurance coverage, or even the appropriate coverage to manage a property as a short-term rental. They almost certainly won’t have set standards, checklists and procedures in place to ensure a safe, comfortable stay for guests.
Between guests, Ready Stays follows a very strict, consistent, white-glove cleaning protocol, which is followed by a 153-point inspection checklist to make sure every sheet, every spoon, every appliance and every detail in our rental apartments is in excellent working order.
If a company is providing the rental, do they have an office located in Tampa Bay? Very often they don’t, and this can mean they don’t have a clear, up-to-date idea of what the city is actually like, and which neighborhoods are best to live in. The lack of a local office will also mean the company won’t be able to address any service issues quickly.
Always Read the Reviews
It’s always a good idea to check out reviews of companies online. Do they have a business page? Are reviews from real-life renters? It’s very easy for companies to fake reviews if they’re hosted solely on their own website, so be sure to check out reviews on third-party sites like TrustPilot and Google Reviews. One thing’s for sure, a complete lack of reviews is a huge red flag!
At Ready Stays, we’ll periodically get calls from renters who have stayed in an apartment offered by a private owner, through Airbnb, or through a company that doesn’t have a local presence, and very often the place looks nothing like the photos they were provided with. In fact, sometimes the photos aren’t even real. We’ve helped dozens of people get out of bad situations and into one of our fantastic rentals, quickly and without fuss, and we are proud and more than happy to do so.
If images of rentals are of low quality, this could be a sign they’ve been taken from a completely unrelated listing and are just being used to make the listing seem more attractive. If you suspect something may be ‘off’ about the listing, you can always utilize Reverse Image Search to see if the images have come from elsewhere online. You can do this by saving the image to your computer, going to Google Images, and clicking on the little camera within the search bar.
With Ready Stays, you can be sure that what you see is what you get, always. Our contract-free stays mean you’re in complete control of how long you stay in one of our beautiful, fully-furnished apartments in Tampa Bay.
Get in touch today to organize a stay with a company you can trust. We look forward to welcoming you soon!
