WANTED: RENTAL UNITS THAT ACCEPT PETS
WEB CAN HELP PET LOVERS FIND APARTMENTS
PEOPLEWITHPETS.COM EXPANDS
TO
34 METRO AREAS
Wanted: Rental Units That Accept
Pets
Renters with pets are a niche market for property
owners.
By Sherri Palmeri
for Office.com
Sept. 11,
2000
About five years ago, Alexander Dobrow was looking for a
rental in Atlanta, but he found it nearly impossible to find a decent
place to live. Lessors would not allow his 120-pound German Pinscher in
the door. Dobrow ended up buying instead.
But when Dobrow began
working for an apartment locating service a few months later, he realized
he was not alone. The number of pet owners who had trouble finding housing
was overwhelming.
Determined to help solve the problem, Dobrow
founded an Atlanta-based company to help pet owners find rentals. Today,
PeopleWithPets.com receives approximately 150 requests from pet owners
every week. "The e-mail I get is from people begging for my help," says
Dobrow. "They are willing to pay me, though I offer the service free to
pet owners."
"The e-mails
I get are from people begging for my help." Alexander Dobrow,
founder PeopleWithPets.com.
Dobrow receives a referral fee for
every tenant he places. Because many people who contact him are located in
other parts of the country, he says finding appropriate housing can be
tedious. To alleviate the problem, he has convinced apartment owners to
advertise on PeopleWithPets.com, so that pet owners will have nationwide
access to pet-friendly rental leads. "The biggest challenge I face in
making this business successful is finding more apartment communities that
will accept pets," says Dobrow.
According to the American
Veterinary Medical Association, there are 53 million dog owners and 60
million cat owners in the United States, and 17 percent of them are
renters.
Rich Kellow of San Diego is one of them. Recently, he was
faced with the frustrating challenge of finding a rental that would allow
two dogs. "It was especially hard because one of my dogs is over 40
pounds," says Kellow. After a week of making phone calls, he was lucky to
find a landlord who would not only rent to him and his two dogs, but who
is also a dog lover.
But the stories do not always have such happy
endings. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, 5.3
percent of pet owners end up getting rid of their animals because they
cannot find housing that will allow pets.
Next page: An innovative
West Coast program that works
"The biggest reason property owners won.
t accept pets is because they are worried about damage," says Michael
Mengden, president of Terra Residential Services, a Houston-based property
management company. "We have had houses where the fleas were so bad you
could not go in until the pest control people got there."
In San
Francisco, where the vacancy rate is less than 1 percent, the San
Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has stepped in
to try to make landlords more receptive to pet owners. In doing so, it has
successfully implemented what is called the "Open Door Program."
"We meet with landlord associations and talk to them about the
benefits of having pet owners as tenants," says Nathan Winogard, director
of community programs for the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals. "We talk to them about how pet owners have a lower
turnover rate than non-pet owners, how there is an increased sense of
building security and how there are fewer vacancies by allowing
pets."
The San Francisco SPCA also pledges to pay landlords for
any pet damage above and beyond the amount the security deposit
covers up to $5,000. In the 10 years since the program. s
inception, no landlords have even tried to cash in on the guarantee,
namely because animals must pass an SPCA training course to be in the
program.
San Francisco SPCA
Chatham Pines'
Management"The amount of involvement any landlord wants in the program
is completely up to them — we don. t set any parameters,"
says Winogard.
In 1990, when the SPCA's program first started,
only 33 percent of properties in San Francisco accepted cats, and only 11
percent took dogs. Today, those numbers have jumped to 55 percent
accepting cats and 29 percent taking dogs.
Monique
Flammini, property director of Chatham Pines, an apartment complex in
Winter Springs, Fla., says she cannot believe it has taken this long for
property owners and managers to catch on. "Our complex has never had any
sort of restrictions on pets, and in the five years I have been here, we
have never had a problem," she says. "Never."
Web can help pet
lovers find apartments
Former real estate
locator turns a personal problem with his big dog into an Internet
business.
Ann Dickerson - For the
Journal-Constitution
Thursday, July 27, 2000
In Alex Dobrow's world, there are two kinds of people: Those who are pet-lovers, and those who are not.
Dobrow doesn't have much time for the latter group, but he created a business for the second, an idea that grew out of his own frustration at being separated from his dog.
Peoplewithpets.com is an Internet-based business that helps pet owners find an apartment in about 25 metro areas across the country. Dobrow, a resident of Woodstock since 1994, founded the company three years ago.
"When we first moved here, we had a 120-pound German pinscher (German shepherd/Doberman pinscher mix) named Boo," said Dobrow, who is married and has two young children. "We wanted to live in an apartment until we found a house but nobody would let us move in with Boo. It was just out of the question."
Boo, who died last month at the age of 15, lived with Dobrow's father for a while until the Dobrows bought a house. But the experience gave Dobrow, who had worked for years as a real estate locator, the idea to start a business.
It works like this: A pet owner who is seeking an apartment calls Dobrow or logs onto his Internet site. On the Web site, pet owners search by area of the country and by the pet's weight.
However, even though the business is based in Atlanta, a search requesting a home in Atlanta for a dog that weighs more than 50 pounds doesn't turn up a single match.
Dobrow says he's constantly working to add new properties. "I'm going to start marketing it better," he said. "As more people advertise with us, we'll be able to offer more properties."
In most cases, if the pet owner ends up signing a contract with an apartment company recommended by Peoplewithpets.com, the apartment company pays Dobrow a referral fee. In a few cases, apartment companies pay to advertise on his site.
Dobrow said the majority of the people who contact him have Labrador retrievers or golden retrievers.
"Most apartments don't have a problem with a 10-pound terrier or a cat," Dobrow said. "But it's a different story with a retriever or a lab."
Fred Powers, a reporter with WGCL, Atlanta's CBS affiliate, saw an advertisement for Peoplewithpets.com before moving to Atlanta three years ago. Dobrow helped Powers find an apartment in Sandy Springs that welcomed his then 1-year-old golden retriever Colby.
"My main concern with finding a place to live was finding a place that would take Colby," Powers said. "Alex was great. You can tell he's a real dog lover."
Pet owners pay dearly at the few places that will accept an oversized pet. Dobrow said apartment companies often require a $500 deposit just for the pet, most of which is nonrefundable. Owners of small dogs often must pay $250-$300.
But most pet owners would shell out even more than $500 for the chance to be with their animal, which is often considered a family member.
"These people beg me to find somewhere," said Dobrow, noting that the Northeast is the hardest region to find pet-friendly lodgings.
Dobrow can relate. When his dog had to be put to sleep a month ago, Dobrow was so distraught he couldn't take Boo to the veterinarian. The vet made a house call.
Deborah Dailey, Boo's veterinarian, didn't hesitate to help the Dobrows. Dailey, whose office is in Marietta, has a 13-year-old golden retriever named Trapper who is starting to show his age.
When Dailey and Trapper moved to the Atlanta area three years ago, Dobrow spent a day with Dailey, searching for apartments that would take a big dog. They found a match in Alpharetta, although Dailey has since moved to a garage apartment with a fenced-in yard.
"Alex was such a help," Dailey said. "He was the first person I met when I came to Atlanta and we've been friends ever since. I don't know what I would have done when I moved here if Trapper hadn't been able to be with me. I would have been so lonely."
For more information about People With Pets, call Alex Dobrow
at 770-517-4404 or visit his Web site at www.peoplewithpets.com.
Homes for pet owners
from the Denver Post
Can't find an apartment that will roll out the red carpet for Fluffy?
An Atlanta-based Web site is helping people in Denver and 33 other cities find apartments that will accept their furry friends.
PeopleWithPets.com has been offering its services in Denver for about three months. The site allows users to look up apartments based what kind of pets they will accept. The site lists four apartment communities in the metro area, but company founder Alex Dobrow said he's constantly on the lookout for more.
Dobrow founded PeopleWithPets in 1997 when he couldn't find an apartment that would take his 120-pound dog, Boo.
"I'd been in the apartment business for about six years, and I knew there were a lot of people in my shoes that couldn't find decent accommodations because of a pet," he said.
While the company usually assists renters with dogs and cats, Dobrow has found homes for snakes, iguanas and a potbellied pig named Chloe.
"Chloe is really my claim to fame," he said .
PeopleWithPets.com, an Internet-based
directory of pet-friendly apartments, is now helping pet owners in
34 metro areas across the country and expanding daily. The company tracks down apartment communities that accept cats
and dogs, including such restricted breeds as Doberman Pinschers,
Rottweilers, Pit Bulls, Chow Chows and German Shepherds. Many of the apartments recommended by the service aren. t listed
in newspapers or apartment directory books, and most do not have
their own Web sites, the company said. "In many cases, we can help people find suitable apartments even
after they have looked extensively on their own," said founder Alex
Dobrow. The service is free to pet owners. Apartment owners are charged a
monthly fee for a full page listing on the Web
site.
PeopleWithPets.com expands
to 34 metro
areas
Tuesday, December 05, 2000
Inman News Features
RISMEDIA, Dec. 5 -- Alex
Dobrow knows how it feels to be separated from a beloved
pet.
When Dobrow and his
family couldn't find an apartment community that would accept Boo, their
120-pound German Pinscher, they had no choice but to leave the dog with
Dobrow's father until they were able to buy a house.
Out of that experience
was born PeopleWithPets.com, a Web site that helps pet owners find
pet-friendly apartments.
Dobrow, an apartment
locator, noticed he wasn't the only pet owner who had trouble finding
housing.
"In my line of work, I
noticed many pet lovers having the same problem I had," he says. "That's
when I started PeopleWithPets.com."
Now assisting pet
owners in 34 metro areas across the country and expanding daily,
PeopleWithPets.com is an Internet directory of pet-friendly
apartments.
Dobrow spends his time
tracking down apartment communities that accept cats, dogs of all sizes,
and restricted breeds, including Doberman Pinschers, Rottweilers, Pit
Bulls, Chow Chows and German Shepherds.
Many of the apartments
recommended by PeopleWithPets.com are not listed in newspapers or
apartment directory books, and most do not have their own Web
sites.
"In many cases, we can
help people find suitable apartments even after they have looked
extensively on their own," says Dobrow. "Apartment communities are now
coming to us and asking to be listed on PeopleWithPets.com."
PeopleWithPets.com's
service is free to pet owners. Apartment owners are charged a small
monthly fee for a full-page listing. A listing typically includes photos,
contact information, a description of the apartment community and its
amenities, and an online form apartment hunters can send directly to the
leasing agent.
PeopleWithPets.com has
proven to be overwhelmingly popular among pet owners -- including some
with less conventional pets.
Thanks to
PeopleWithPets.com, one potbellied pig named Chloe now lives happily with
her family in a pet-friendly apartment community.
To learn more about
PeopleWithPets.com, contact Alex Dobrow at 888/293-PETS or topdog@peoplewithpets.com.
Those looking for
pet-friendly apartments, and apartments wishing to be listed on
PeopleWithPets.com, should visit the site at http://www.peoplewithpets.com/.
Apartment Life
Tips for finding pet-friendly apartments
By Sarah Knott
The Cincinnati Enquirer For Cincinnati.com
January 9,
2002
If you're a renter with a canine friend, you understand.
Finding an apartment that allows dogs is as simple as rocket science.
Finding a landlord that allows pets, period, can be just as complicated. Although approximately 50% of renters in the United States own pets, a much smaller percentage of landlords allow them in their properties, a fact made even clearer by the Humane Society's claim that the top reason for pet drop-offs is "moving" or "landlord won't allow."
Damage, odor, noise and liability are the top reasons why, says owner and founder of PeopleWithPets.com, Alex Dobrow. His Web site provides a searchable, nationwide database of apartments that accept animals.
"We typically get calls from people because they are desperate," he says. Dobrow says he's received pleas for help from renters with six pets, with pigs and pet ducks. And even if a pet owner is lucky enough to find a pet-friendly place, Dobrow says landlords don't make it easy.
"They will typically ask for a pet deposit--an extra $500 in the deposit," he says. "They will all ask for extra in rent, maybe $25 to $50 a month, or they will impose breed restrictions," meaning that those with Dobermans, German Shepherds, Chows, Pit Bulls or Rottweilers are usually turned away.
So what can a renter do to make moving with a pet smoother?
First, add a few months to your search. It will take longer--sometimes up to six months longer--than the average person.
Next, think about compiling a pet resume. Yes, it's a resume for your pet. Include things such as vet records and a photo. Include characteristics--not "can catch a Frisbee," but "quiet, good with other dogs, uses a scratching post." Add breed, weight and any honors, like graduation from obedience school. Describe your pet's grooming habits. Is Fido professionally groomed every month? Do you brush Fifi every day? Cite references such as past neighbors or old pet-sitters
Keep in mind that the pet resume will only help you with apartments that already allow pets. Dobrow says it will not change anyone's mind.
"Either a landlord will take a big dog or they won't," he says.
Finally, like most landlord/tenant exchanges, don't take the landlord's word for it. Make sure you get a pet clause in writing.
Dobrow added a positive note for apartment-dwelling animal lovers. Due to a currently weak apartment market, many landlords are now allowing pets just because they want their spaces filled.
