By Sally Anderson of MSN Real Estate

Hunting for an apartment is akin to a scavenger hunt: It can seem as if every place you see falls a few pieces short of your wish list. If your budget is low or the market is tight, don’t be too discouraged if you have to settle for less than perfection. You can always move up — maybe even in the same building.

If this is your first apartment you’ll be renting on your own, consider the apartment hunt a rite of passage. It may you remind you more of getting your driver’s license than a first kiss, but once you’ve mastered the mechanics it can be a liberating, even life-changing, event.

Apartment hunter’s checklist
Whether you go for fun and funky, a spare “designer” look, or big complexes with Friday happy hours, start your search by listing your top priorities. What can you not live without, and what are you willing to sacrifice? Take copies of this checklist with you as you look — or steal some ideas and make a list of your own.

* Location of building (safety, proximity to places you visit often)
* Location in building (bottom floors may be less safe; upper floors are harder to move into)
* Emergency exits
* Smoke detectors/fire extinguisher
* Elevator or stairs (ease of moving or evacuation)
* Hallways (well-maintained, well-lit)
* Lead-based paint (important for the very young and those with weakened immune systems)
* Number of bedrooms and bathrooms
* Furnished or unfurnished
* Room for a desk or home office
* Natural light
* Hardwood floors
* Fireplace
* Separate dining room
* Kitchen space (meal area, counter space, storage for cookware and small appliances)
* Kitchen drawers and cupboards (storage and ease of opening)
* Appliances included (and condition of refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave, washer and dryer)
* Gas or electric heat
* Gas or electric oven
* Air conditioning
* Closet space and other storage
* Garden, yard, balcony, patio or rooftop access
* Outlets in all rooms (plentiful, safe, well-located)
* Phone jacks for phones and modems
* Television reception (cable required or provided)
* Door locks (locks on all doors; deadbolt and security chain on entry door)
* Windows (ease of opening, locks, screens)
* Soundproofed walls (neighborhood and building noise)
* Privacy of unit and bedrooms
* Curtains or blinds
* Water heater (large enough to keep showers hot)
* Faucets and shower heads (condition and water flow)
* Tap water (odd color and taste might indicate a problem)
* View
* Laundry facilities (hours of access, adequate lighting)
* Parking (paid building parking or off-street)
* Bike storage (security and lighting)
* Mailboxes (security and lighting)
* Swimming pool
* Common areas
* Workout facilities
* Wheelchair access
* Neighborhood flavor
* Onsite landlord

By Adam Silverman
Free Press Staff Writer

The deal appeared to be a particularly good one: a two-bedroom, 2 1/2-bathroom townhouse with lots of amenities in Essex available for $900 a month in rent.

The listing on Craigslist, an Internet-based classified-advertising service, included four photographs of the property at 10 Stannard Drive, inside and out, and language that came straight from a real-estate agent. The agent even seemed to have signed the ad and included her e-mail address.

But the whole thing was a fraud, Realtor Kathie Desautels said.

An overseas scam artist had hijacked Desautels’ legitimate listing for the property, copied the text and photographs from another Web site and converted a for-sale ad into a rental proposition on Craigslist, the agent discovered this week. The scammer was trolling for cash, to be wired overseas.

“We are pleased and happy going to rent out our house to your family, you will be required to send a Security Deposit of $600 to enable me send you the neccssary paperworks and keys,” read a passage of an e-mail sent to a potential renter, according to a copy of the note Desautels provided Wednesday to The Burlington Free Press. Desautels’ name appeared at the bottom of the message.

“We are currently opening internatyional bank account here where the monthly rental fees will be paid into, but for the time being the Security Deposit will have to be sent to us via Western Union Money Transfer as it stands the fastest and most secured way for us to receive it until the bank account is ready,” the scammer wrote, adding the renter should wire money immediately to conclude the deal.

“Okay?” the e-mail concluded.

Not really, no, should be the answer to that question, Vermont Assistant Attorney General Elliot Burg said.

“Don’t send money — your payments, your security deposit, your first month’s rent, whatever — in any form that is not guaranteed,” Burg said Wednesday, encouraging consumers to use a credit card only once they have verified as much of a listing’s legitimacy as possible. “Once that money is gone, it’s gone. It’s like sending cash.”

The ad also asked people to provide personal information such as names of spouses and children.

Desautels, an agent with Remax North Professionals in Colchester, reported the spurious listing to Essex police and the Attorney General’s Office. She said she knew of at least 20 people who responded first to the ad and its phony e-mail address and then contacted Desautels directly, wondering why she hadn’t replied or raising concerns about the content of the communications.

“It’s all pretty eerie,” she said. “For me personally, for my reputation, this is huge, especially if people send a check.”

Desautels knows of no one who lost money, but she’s unsure how many people might have replied to the advertisement without notifying her. The people who spoke to Desautels at her office instead of or in addition to using the phony e-mail address did so because they knew her or feared a scam, she said.

Craigslist removed the posting shortly after Desautels discovered the fraud Tuesday afternoon after receiving a call about a rental listing. She doesn’t handle rentals, she said.

“Within the next hour, I had phone calls, e-mails, people saying, ‘Is this for real?’” she said. “Then I looked, and I saw this fake e-mail address, and I just knew it was a scam going on.”

There’s little law enforcement can do in cases like this, because the suspects usually are overseas, Essex Police Officer Damir Karadza said Wednesday. The best approach for authorities is to warn the public such frauds exist and to advise caution, he said.

“People just have to be aware, take their time and be careful,” Karadza said. “There’s very little we can do.”

A phone number provided in one of the e-mail responses to a rental inquiry contained an international prefix. An Internet search turned up conflicting information about whether the prefix led to Nigeria or a mobile phone in Pakistan.

In one e-mail, the scammers explained, “I am currently inn Nigeria and I will be here for sometime to take care of my missionary works here.” Again, Desautels’ name appeared at the bottom. She’s in Vermont, though, not on an African mission.

Desautels said she knows of at least one other local real-estate firm that fell victim to a similar hijacking of an online listing. Burg said his office is investigating the case of one Vermonter who lost $2,000 after replying to a Craigslist posting for an apartment in Washington, D.C., that turned out to be a sham.

“Fraud has gone global,” Burg said.

The Essex townhouse, meanwhile, remains on the market — for sale, not for rent — with an asking price of $283,000.

Contact Adam Silverman at 660-1854 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it To have Free Press headlines delivered free to your e-mail, sign up at www.burlingtonfreepress.com/newsletters.

Check out your renting profile based on your rent, your housing price increases, and the cost of buying your home! It is quite astounding that based on today’s estimated residential price appreciation rates, it may make more sense to keep on renting and save that extra money per month.

More and more real estate professionals are realizing the importance of offering Broadband internet to their customers.

Renters should be asking their landlord about their broadband options so YOU don’t get caught by surprise.

Areas with better and faster broadband are becoming more desirable than ones with slower access.

Real estate broker Edward Redpath of Hanover, N.H. said he has seen potential deals fall by the wayside once the buyer finds out a home doesn’t have broadband Internet access. Across the river in Norwich, Vt., the center of the village is the only place with cable.

“We have a lot of people that don’t go into the rural neighborhoods or consider the rural neighborhoods because they need the broadband,” Redpath told the AP.

“Our lifestyle demands speed.”

Many factors are at play in driving the trend, including our increasing reliance on broadband. Indeed, roughly 55 percent of Americans have broadband connections in their homes, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. However, more have service available to them and choose not to buy it.

But the growth of broadband is slowing, and providing connections to the remaining 10 percent of unconnected homes will be expensive since these homes are typically in small communities or in remote locations. As time goes on, the lack of universal broadband combined with higher gas prices might draw people from the countryside to cities and suburbs.

Redpath’s local phone service provider, FairPoint Communications Inc., is turning to unconventional means to connect the most remote Vermont homes. The company will begin using wireless broadband links next year to keep its promise of providing high-speed Internet access throughout its entire service area.

The most important factor for the location was the availability of reliable Internet,” Skripka told the AP.

The standard in luxury apartment buildings is to have at least two options for broadband Internet access, said Henry Pye, director of resident services and technology at JPI Partners LLC, which owns buildings throughout the United States. Pye’s job is to ensure the buildings have broadband connectivity, because you can’t rent out apartments without it, he said.

“It might as well be water,” he told the AP.

Andru Edwards, who runs Gearlive.com, moved from Seattle to a suburb last year so he could gain access to a fiber-optic connection from Verizon Communications Inc. While he had a cable modem at his old apartment, it took too long to upload high-definition video for his blog.

“It definitely took our business to the next level. I’ve never looked back,” he told the AP.

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