Westside Rentals: More Funny Business?

By Victor - Tuesday August 22nd 2006

For sale! We tried to look the other way, really we did. As we had previously whined about the potentially dubious business practices of the Westside Rentals listings empire, we figured we’d let this one go. But for over a month now, WSR has persisted on flooding news outlets with advertisements veiled as press releases citing pseudo-scientific findings, complete with colorful Powerpoint charts, that, on first glance, just may make rent costs appear to be easing, and thus a more attractive option.

If you haven’t seen these, here’s the gist. WSR has been cranking out press releases supposedly demonstrating up/down trends in rent costs in various areas (Westside, South Bay, etc.) over a sampling period of a whole 2 months. As noted over at Curbed, some of these press releases may show a either a negligible (+0.5% on the Westside) or bafflingly massive (+110% in Bel Air?) uptick in rents, but one effect of these releases is to portray a broader downward trend in rent costs.

Take this laughable statement:

Rent prices decreased in Brentwood by 9.9% and Santa Monica by 4.2%.

Or this one (see if you can spot how the logic crossfades from one premise to an altogether different conclusion within the span of a single sentence):

For July 2006, the average listed rent price of all listed rentals in these areas was $1,855.43, representing a 5.7% decrease in rent prices over two months ago.

While there may have been a 5.7% decrease in the prices of what they listed, this is not a general decrease in rent prices; e.g., “average listed rent price of all listed rentals” is not the same as “rent prices.”

And so it’s not until you get to the second to the last paragraph that you get how these numbers are actually derived. Ready the legal disclaimer:

This data is based on the listings at WestsideRentals.com, which are based entirely on the information provided by landlords who choose to list their vacancies on the service.

What this means is that the limited data with which they are attempting to depict a general economic trend cannot in fact be used to do so. For example, if Landlord A in 900xx lists a unit for $1000 in June and Landlord B lists an apartment in the same 900xx in July for $900, this is not a -10% downward trend of “rent costs,” but only indicates what rentals were listed with WSR in a given month.

The notion that L.A. area rents are decreasing in any signficant way is ridiculous, but WSR apparently would not mind if somehow you should happen to get this idea.

What now?

31 Responses to “Westside Rentals: More Funny Business?”

don hosek : 8/22/06 at 10:44 am

I do have a hard time seeing a sampling error that gives this result though: WSR listings have tended to be biased towards small property listings (as opposed to say rent.com which is almost exclusively large properties). That would indicate that as WSR expands their listing base they should get more large properties which tend to have higher rents and their average should go up. Unless they’re losing high-end landlords in their listing base.
abby : 8/22/06 at 2:22 pm

Nice!!! I used to work for that company. They make up listings, use fake credit cards to cover their ass, have their friends pretend to rent out studios so they can advertise them.

Keep up the good work
don hosek : 8/22/06 at 3:27 pm

I’ve heard the charges of fake listings, but when my wife and I used them in January while looking for apartments, no listing that I called about was fake. Granted, the apartments that we narrowed ourselves down to were not in wsr, but it without wsr, we probably wouldn’t have found our neighborhood at all. And there were some areas that we looked in (particularly santa monica) were EVERY apartment for rent had a WSR sign only. They’re evil because of the monopoly, but in our experience, we never saw anything to back up the fake or distorted listings charge.
polly-o : 8/22/06 at 5:18 pm

My friend is an apt. manager and every time there is a vancy in her bldg, she gets numerous phone calls from Westside Rentals asking her if she wants to list it with them. She also says that she often suspects people calling for info about an apt. are actually just info-gathering, as the questions they ask are usually the same and very, very specific–and she often wonders if this is WSR or some other agency.

She said she also knows that WSR goes on Craigslist and copies listing info and puts it up on their site.

Bearing some of this out, I called about an apt. late last week and when the woman answered I had to quickly glance at my sheet of compiled listings to get something to identify it with (so I could say, “I’m calling about your [guest house or apartment or whatever]“), and my eye lit on “townhome.” So that’s what I said; “I’m calling about your townhome for rent.” The woman said a little exasperatedly that she was not renting any townhome. She said that was what WSR had put, but she had not given them that info.

I also notice that the little green symbol WSR uses to identify their “exclusive” listings is not oft seen.

I think no one can do better than to go to CL every day at a few chosen intervals for the freshest listings, scanning that day’s arrivals. I shocked a guy yesterday by calling only an hour or so after he’d put it up. He wasn’t even prepared to say when he could show it.
Metroblogging Los Angeles : 8/23/06 at 3:32 pm

Sweatin’ Bullet Points: 8/23/06

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Metroblogging Los Angeles : 8/23/06 at 3:57 pm

Sweatin’ Bullet Points: 8/23/06

â€¢ “Subject Line Here”, a live reading by a collection of LA bloggers held a few months ago, raised over $2200 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society between box office and a DVD of the evening. Congrats to Shane Nickerson…
Captain Melo : 8/23/06 at 7:00 pm

I used both CL and WSR with varying degrees of success. http://www.rentslicer.com does pretty graphs and statistics based on CL data, and it organizes it by neighborhoods so you spend less time clicking through all the irrelevant CL rental listings
chuck : 8/27/06 at 8:50 pm

westsiderentals, westsiderentals.com sinks. They lie, cheat, and mislead. How are they still in business
phillygirl : 11/8/06 at 1:43 pm

Don’t rent from these people!!! Worst service ever and half of what they provide is inaccurate and the rest is scary!! What a scam. Get a refund fast and look elsewhere.
Shelby : 11/15/06 at 8:22 pm

Who says Westside Rentals copies ads from Craigslist and newspapers? I tried the Craigslist and newspaper route like mad and didnt have luck finding a place. I gave in and paid my $60 and signed up with Westside Rentals. I found a place 4 days into my membership. None of the listings I got from Westside Rentals was on Craigslist or any of the papers I wasted my time rummaging through for weeks. I would of saved $160 in gas and time if I would of signed up earlier. Believe me, if these were all listings lifted from Craigslist or the newspaper I would have known. Westside Rentals is awesome. Stop hatin’ and misleading people by posting lies about Westside Rentals just because you rather die than pay $60 for something that works.
Westside Rentals is awesome! : 11/16/06 at 12:38 pm

Hmmm, I smell a WSR plant. If you can find an apartment in 4 days with them, then why do they only sell you a minimum of 2 months of access? How about charging $7 a week (or even a $1 a day) if the service is so goddamn great? No one is saying that Craigslist and newspapers have ALL the listings that WSR does, BUT that WSR pads their exclusive listings by taking some from Craiglist and newspapers–big difference.
HaHaHa : 1/16/07 at 1:47 am

Old Shelby’s post above is a plant from Westside nice try Westside, I worked at westside and 100% they farm the papers and craigslist for property.

I left this company because I felt plain shit when I would see people being lied to right in front of me and all the hi fives going around the office when a customer was lied and sold to.
SpongeBob : 2/27/07 at 10:42 pm

Westside rentals what a rip off, check out their F rating at the BBB, this boiler room merchants flood the paper with hundreds of bogus adverts.

Call on anything and you will be told yes its available or be re-directed to a bunch of outdated rental listings.

Go on test them out Make up a property and say you saw it advertised is it still available?
You will be told ‘Yes’ and we have others, you can call Westside up make up a dream home in a dream spot and hey presto aboiler room telemarketer will make that one magicaly become available.. Talk about Bait and Switch!

Another Big Joke are all the landlords being taken for a ride with the WSR sign boards.

A landlord wants to rent his home so Westside rentals will stick a board on his property with or with out his permission funny thing is the board has nothing about the property nor the landlords number if you notice all the boards are really designed to be free advertising for WSR.

Al the boards say is Westsiderentals.com and a phone number call the number and you will get a sales pitch to come and check out their listings.

So that leaves landlords looking pretty stupid giving WSR free advertising space on their property when there is no mention of their property on the board and no sales pitch talking about their property unless a customer pays and then gets redirected to other landlords properties.

Suggestion: Landlords trash those boards now and stick your own board out the front and if you want to list with a company list but dont be a fool and redirect potential tenants elsewhere.
Billy : 2/27/07 at 10:46 pm

You guys are a bunch of losers to take so much time trashing Westside Rentals. If you guys are so concerned with informing the public about a crappy service, then why not mention the real scams like EZRENTLIST or RENTWAVE, etc…. Hmm, perhaps you are work for those crappy companys and you are the plant and this is what you have to do to redirect the business that Westside Rentals gets. Examine all the other website rental services out there. Westside Rentals is the only service that have office you can come to and get personal help whenever you want. Does EZRENTLIST or any other rental service in L.A have more than one office you can come to and get assistance? Why don’t alot of these rental websites list addresses where they are located? Maybe because you dont know where to go to complain or maybe to hide the fact that they only have one hole in the wall office with 3 people working there. What a retard to say Westside Rentals employees high five each other for one little sale. Why would they? They get hundreds of these sales a day. Are you saying the sales people are paid on commission? They do not work on commission. Who is the idiot that suggested Westside Rentals should charge $1 a day since they are so “goddamn great”? I guess this same idiot thinks a gallon of milk should cost 5 cents if you drink it in one day although the expiration date is good for up to 2 weeks. Duhh… Im not gonna drink the milk for 2 weeks, Im gonna drink it in one day. I should pay a nickle. If Westside Rentals is so bad why do they keep growing? You losers dont need to waste your loser time and keep making those rediculous statements and lies about Westside Rentals…. unless you are the scammy so-called competitors. As I’m sure the next person that writes in here will accuse me of being a Westside Rentals employee, I’m not. I am someone who has done research. who is to say these critics are not employees of other inferior rental services that are unable to compete with Westside Rentals?
Save your money : 3/4/07 at 3:41 pm

Save your money then! don’t use to service and don’t complain about them, i was able to find a place, also with that attiude most of you present as being “cheapskates” do you expect the landlords to pay you to rent their place also?

the info is there for free, go drive around around a call signs, the service is just designed to make your search more quickly, that’s is…

and last time i checked their had a D from the better business bureau http://www.labbb.org/BBBWeb/Forms/Business/CompanyReportPage_Expository.aspx?CompanyID=13
Ryan : 3/6/07 at 7:04 pm

I had a decent time using westisde rentals. Moving to Culver City, and eventually to Mar Vist. A few of the places I called were rented, but for the most part the service was good.

I didn’t find out about WSR from a friend, or from their signs. When I moved from Arizona I made the tragic mistake of using EzRentlist.

When I called the landlords on the site, they would say that their units had been rented for 3 weeks, and they didn’t know who gave me their info since the only listed with WSR. The only gurantee about the site, was that if you called a placed it would be rented. I demanded a refund and was denied. Filing a complaint wit the BBB did not do much either.
As of know they still have a F rating by the BBB, and have 177 complaints against them.

http://www.labbb.org/BBBWeb/Forms/Business/CompanyReportPage_Expository.aspx?CompanyID=13143930

I think WSR overall is a good service.
fa : 3/7/07 at 2:38 am

There was this idiot advertising for WSR at Santa Anita this past weekend while I was trying to cheer on Lava Man. The only thing worse than his rhymes was his (lack of) rhythm. Douche!
RippedOff By Westside : 3/24/07 at 9:39 am

Westside is filled with lieing telemarketing scammers that say anything to get you to sign up, Hello I am calling about the 27 room mansion for $600 a month “O yes that still available” What about your Mumas house? “O yes thats still available now bring me $60. What a RIPP OFF!!
LOL : 3/24/07 at 9:45 am

Billy you protest far too much and show your self to be a westside employee all the research in the world would not tell you employees do not hi five each other in the office after they string a customer into paying them, so take your crap defense and suck on it just like Westside sucks.
ginger : 5/16/07 at 1:57 pm

I lived in an apartment managed by westside rentals once, never again. I had suspicions about how they were running their business. Not soon after did I see the janitor entering people’s apartments and hanging around a while. He was in my neighbor’s apartment once, i heard her tv on blarring loudly, I knocked on her door. No one answered. so i went back into my apartment, i heard the tv go down so i went to the door and peeped out the peephole, low and behold, the janitor came out. Apparently he goes into people’s apartments when they aren’t home, going through their stuff. Needless to say, my apartment was broken into not long after that, coincidence? I think not, and the management, did NOTHING. run, as far away as fast as you can!
S : 7/8/07 at 8:37 pm

Just saw these posts. Funny stuff.

Yes, most of these ‘defenders’ are plants. I used to work for the company, too.

The service itself, is meant to be good. They do try to keep the listings updated. But the do take, at all times, from CraigsList. I warned them not to when I worked for them, but they hired this evil little douche named Anthony. He took what little credibilty they had and flushed it down the toilet.

Of course the responsiblity lies squarly on the shoulders of the owner, though he tries to play innocent.

Too bad. Because they are giving a good service a bad name.
Westside Rentals Bull Shit : 7/13/07 at 8:17 am

Westside Rentals is a scam dressed with a cherry, god knows how they get away with it maybe people like myself were enchanted by the bright lights while being taken for the fee.

Westside rentals service is basicaly crap and yes I to was given the old bait and switch and then sent into a spiral of bull shit stories by staff when I would press on adverts rthey had run.

Save your money and do not pay these sharks, you will get frustrated and a big tel phone bill calling rented homes and a big gas bill driving to rented homes.

Take my advice and go to craigslist or drive the area you want to live in and look for rent signs.
brett : 9/30/07 at 8:51 am

As landlords, we stopped listing with WR long ago. They are slimy to deal with, but most aggravating is they’re stupid and rude and indifferent. It is not worth the stress and problems listing properties with them. They’d best be careful stealing listings from CL – especially if they make errors or changes from the original ad, they will get sued, if they haven’t already. This almost happened to another rental service that steals ads.
NOTE: WR if you’re reading this, if you steal our listings from CL or elsewhere, WE WILL SUE YOU. If we wanted to advertise with you, we’d call you.
Westside Fakes : 10/19/07 at 9:16 am

I was lied to by Westside they told me adverts were available but when I paid them I never got to see those ones they just strung me along telling me they were waiting for landlords to get back who all seemed to be on holiday.. Its a scam plain and simple.
Steve : 11/4/07 at 1:13 pm

I’m not sure what this is all about but I have used WSR for a few years to rent a room and have always had success finding a roomate.
The Westside Rentals Hearse: A Line-By-Line Study : 11/15/07 at 8:54 am

[...] on this website, few posts generate as many passionately eloquent arguments as the individual articles regarding Westside Rentals. Every renter in the city has formed a distinct opinion about the local [...]
The Westside Rentals Hearse: A Line-By-Line Study : 11/15/07 at 8:54 am

[...] on this website, few posts generate as many passionately eloquent arguments as the individual articles regarding Westside Rentals. Every renter in the city has formed a distinct opinion about the local [...]
tony : 1/16/08 at 11:35 am

Funny stuff. I never used westside, but I always am suspicious of anyine charging for something that is free ( i.e the old days of footing it to look for an apartment ). Naturally, a business like westside has all the making of a scam. There is never any guarantee of anything. That is what they sell, a feeling of certainty. The managers think that potential renters will be screened and the renters think they will get a decent place in a decent neighborhood in a minimal amount of time. It’s all smoke and mirrors. The allusion of certainty and security. Lame. People have a right to have a place to live, otherwise being homeless would be cool and hip. Don’t ever give your hard earned money to scam artists. Walk, take the bus, ride a bike to find an apartment as long as you save that seemingly insignificant $60. You take take your girlfriend out to lunch.
janis : 5/20/08 at 6:23 pm

I have used WSR several times and each time had very good applicants come to view my property in fact I had to turn people away. So far its been since 2004 and I have not had a problem. Could it be the office you are working with? The one is Pasadena has been pretty good for me. But then again I only have done business with them a few times.
Tim : 10/10/08 at 5:21 pm

My experience as a landlord with WSR is a joke! They provide a free service… I guess you get what you pay for. Management is an (untrained) joke! If I could find out how to contact corporate, I would.
Jenn : 11/6/09 at 7:07 pm

Why pay for a gardener?… mow your own damn lawn, its free. Why pay for a gym membership? You can excercise without throwing your money away. God forbid you go to a car wash… go to your moms house instead and use the hose in her front yard to wash your own car.. it will be free.
Tony, you suggest taking a bus to look for rentals but, why pay bus fare? … walking is free. I guess all the landscapers, 24 hour Fitness and the Los Angeles Raid Transit Authority are all scam artist too.
Im sure you make your own clothes and grow your own food too.
All you whiners, stop hating a service that really works well. I strongly recommend using Westside Rentals.

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Westside Rentals: More Funny Business?

What now?

31 Responses to “Westside Rentals: More Funny Business?”

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