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Review 9/23/2011
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Do not use this company.
I signed up in June for the 6-month $130 option. After supplying some basic information for the kind of properties I was looking for, I was sent an e-mail containing 17 listings for places that met my criteria.
One problem: Each property listing was merely a link to a handful of other listing sites, like Rent.com, Craigslist and the like. I started to ask the question why I was paying them $130 to do what I could do myself for free.
Still, I'd already spent the money. After a couple weeks (now into July) of not finding any places to my liking, I requested another report of listings. I had to repeat my criteria again, as apparently they do not keep this on record. I did not receive the listing.
A week later I called again, mentioning the lack of fulfillment of my previous request. While customer service is very nice and accommodating on the phone, the results they actually produce are underwhelming. I received a set of 24 properties, all garnered from 3rd-party websites again.
To be clear, none of the listings you will receive from MyRealtyDeal are exclusive. You can find them all for free yourself without having to spend any money. Unlike WestSideRentals.com, who curate their own exclusive listings, MyRealtyDeal charges you for essentially doing your work for you, with no special advantage. Worse, there isn't even any proactive feature that alerts you to new listings that have arrived that meet your criteria. You have to request them yourself over and over, and remind them what you're looking for every time.
I requested yet another listing a couple of weeks later, when my criteria changed. On August 5th I received 12 listings, all from the REMAX website.
Circumstances delayed my readiness to move, so a few weeks went by before I requested another listing. I never received it. I called back a week later, and they promised an e-mail of new listings within 24-hours (all of their e-mails take at least 24-hour periods to fulfill, longer over weekends). That listing never arrived either. I tried yet again another week later.
I still haven't received any listings from them (September 23rd, to date). Of course, I could also log in to their website and perform custom searches. However, the interface is not user-friendly, particularly compared to the sites they steal listing from, most of which allow you to filter results or sort them based on price, or distance, etc. In fact, when you first sign up with them, you are told to call their hotline so that someone can walk you through the process, it is that incompetently designed. There are two different search options, "Self Search" and "Custom Search", and the only obvious difference is one you have to wait for longer. Results on other sites are instantaneous, whereas here they might arrive after five or ten minutes, and then in a very spartan grid, with no preview of a picture and basic title, only the city and price. I think Custom Search might be the same as calling in to request a listing, an option in which I have next to zero confidence.
I wish I could write more positive things to balance this review, but there has hardly been enough "service" from them to base anything else on. Their refund policy is apparently locked behind steal bars and will ultimately cost you more than it's worth in frustration and time, which would have been better spent just looking for apartments yourself anyway.
That is the path I've decided to take. I suggest you do the same.
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