Does anyone know how to rent to Diplomats or Embassy Personnel?

[Anonymous]

Never rent to embassy people because they're not subject to any laws here.

[Anonymous]

What you need is to rent to American state department employees who are on their mandatory three year rotation to DC. I can tell you they are always on the hunt for a good rental because no one wants to buy here. Some are also here on language training but that will be a one year rental. They would also pay very well for furnished housing. There are several Facebook groups that cater to helping State Department employees find rentals in DC. Post there and your place will be snatched up right away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What you need is to rent to American state department employees who are on their mandatory three year rotation to DC. I can tell you they are always on the hunt for a good rental because no one wants to buy here. Some are also here on language training but that will be a one year rental. They would also pay very well for furnished housing. There are several Facebook groups that cater to helping State Department employees find rentals in DC. Post there and your place will be snatched up right away.

Arlington landlord here. I never rent to State Dept. people. They are the most entitled people and are used to having embassy housing offices or local staff take care of everything for them. They treated me like their staff and called me if a lightbulb needed replacement, despite what the lease said.

Best renters are US military because they know how to take care of houses and will do their own yard work and take care of houses because they are often landlords elsewhere and respect houses.

The Dutch and Australian military have their own housing offices and are very easy to deal with. The Embassy makes them care of the place.

Best thing to do for Embssy or foreign military is to offer lawn cutting, leaf raking, and yard cleanup in the lease at a higher rent. The Embassy will pay the higher rent, but will not reimburse the tenants if they hire people to do the work.

Second best reason for renting to all military and Embassy folks: they are stable human beings and do not want to bring in emotional support animals to make their lives bearable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will be renting my 5 bedroom house in Chevy Chase, MD beginning 1 September 2024. Would like to rent to Embassy, Military, or other persons for at least a 2 year lease. Where is the best place to advertise my property?

Thanks in advance!

That's great!
You're about to enter the world of being a spoiled landlord, lol.

You'll have a much greater advantage over the vast majority of other landlords, because BCC is one of the very few high schools in lower MoCo, that can accept international credits from schools overseas in the International Baccalaueate Program (better known as the 1B).
Since most diplomats have children, that is a BIG deal!.

The only high schools that are affiliated with 1B in lower MoCo are BCC, Richard Montgomery, Einstein & Rockville.

I rented to 4 different embassies over a 20 year period (England, Italy, Austria & Copenhagen).
Let me tell you, embassies are THE best tenants!

- They always pay on time, every time.
- They send their own embassy workers over to the house to fix anything & everything that needs to be fixed.
- They leave the house in better condition than what they found it in usually, as the vast majority want to upgrades to the home to make it into the luxury that they're accustom to (and they pay for it all).
- They're super easy/available to communicate with.
- The actual tenants are almost always very respectful, as they know that their embassy has the power to make or break them and more importantly, where they end up next.

We loved all of our tenants, with the exception of one... she was from the UK embassy and she was an absolute NIGHTMARE!
She let the water run on the master bedroom toilet 24/7 without telling anyone, so we ended up getting a $20,000 water bill at the end of the month (which the embassy paid for). She was difficult, smug, sanctimonious, had a nasty attitude, incommunicative when we needed to get in the house to look at things thatSHE complained about, she damaged a few sections of hardwood that had to be totally replaced, and she was even nastier to the people who worked at the embassy than she was us (and the people who work at the embassies in support are a special kind of patient and kind. There was absolutely no reason to treat them that way).

My contact and the embassy filed a report on her, which she said she'd never done in her 18 years of being a landlord liason.

For my tenants next assignment, they sent her to Tripoli, Libya. 🤣

So, as for getting on their radar.
I would look at their website and find someone who you can send the listing of your property to, and then send it to every single embassy on the row.
You'll get a bite ASAP (especially if you're in the BCC cluster, they snap those homes up as soon as they hit the market).

This has not been my experience, and I've rented to a fair number of diplomats.

Yes, they always pay, no question. But the embassy sending their own workers to fix issues in your house and making luxury upgrades at their expense? Yeah, lol, that never happens. The landlord has to fix issues just like they would with any other tenant. And while I do agree that diplomats are in general good tenants, they feel the strain of housing costs just like everyone else. They may get a $3,500/month housing allowance when it really costs $5,000/month to comfortably house their family near the embassy (ambassadors and the other highest-level diplomats are exceptions to this). So they are either faced with a long commute or have to pay for some of their housing costs out of their pocket - neither of these prospects makes them particularly happy.

I have a $100 repair deductible in my rentals just to avoid getting called to change a light bulb and so on. Most tenants are OK with this and understand that actual repairs cost much more than $100. However, my diplomat tenants will often let things go (nothing major like water leaks, etc.) simply to avoid paying the $100 fee.

I've only rented to the embassy of Japan.
They rented from us for eight years, and they always sent their own handymen over to fix things that broke due to tenant mishap.
They explained that using their own people was far more affordable for them than any handyman that I would've hired.
However, it's no secret that landlords in Chevy Chase have the leverage to include special provisions in their leases, because there were such a limited number of homes whose addresses qualified for the 1B program.
Of course, that created high competition among the embassies that were eager to secure the properties for themselves.

It's really not that far fetched. Is your rental in Chevy Chase or slated for the 1B program?

My eight year tenants also did upgrades.
Our house wasn't in Chevy Chase, but they wanted to do it for tradition.
We said yes because we wanted them to feel more comfortable here and more at home. It's what they used in Japan and ithelped them keep to traditio, even with being so far away from home.
Although, they always approved it with us first, though.

Just because your tenants didn't do it doesn't mean that it "never happens" like you claim.
It's narrow-minded and foolish to assume you know everything about renting to every embassy.

Most of the upgrades were reverted back before they vacated, but a few we retained (particularly the high-tech bathroom equipment they installed, which included a bidet that spoke three different languages (Chinese, Japanese, and English) heated seat warmers, deodorizers, and even a white noise machines to mask unpleasant or embarrassing sounds ( :lol.
Most of those things were unheard of in America in 2010 (beside the bidet, of course).

We removed the Onsen bath from the bathroom in the MIL suite, though.
Despite its beauty, we anticipated that future tenants probably wouldn't use it, making it neither cost-effective nor practical to retain.

We moved to Deleware ten years ago, so we had to sell our rental along with our primary home. Otherwise, we'd still be renting to the Japaneseen embassy, as it was such a pleasurable experience!

The bolded part made me laugh. TBH that is what I was thinking about your previous post. And the renter to the English woman

- been a landlord to diplomats and a diplomat renter

[Anonymous]

The original post is from mid 2024, but in case others have the same question: we had multiple Long and Foster real estate agents with foreign diplomat clients reach out when we advertised our CCMD house for rent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What you need is to rent to American state department employees who are on their mandatory three year rotation to DC. I can tell you they are always on the hunt for a good rental because no one wants to buy here. Some are also here on language training but that will be a one year rental. They would also pay very well for furnished housing. There are several Facebook groups that cater to helping State Department employees find rentals in DC. Post there and your place will be snatched up right away.

They don’t have a lot to spend

[Anonymous]

Can you tell us the specific Facebook groups to post housing for diplomats or embassy personnel?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you need is to rent to American state department employees who are on their mandatory three year rotation to DC. I can tell you they are always on the hunt for a good rental because no one wants to buy here. Some are also here on language training but that will be a one year rental. They would also pay very well for furnished housing. There are several Facebook groups that cater to helping State Department employees find rentals in DC. Post there and your place will be snatched up right away.

Arlington landlord here. I never rent to State Dept. people. They are the most entitled people and are used to having embassy housing offices or local staff take care of everything for them. They treated me like their staff and called me if a lightbulb needed replacement, despite what the lease said.

Best renters are US military because they know how to take care of houses and will do their own yard work and take care of houses because they are often landlords elsewhere and respect houses.

The Dutch and Australian military have their own housing offices and are very easy to deal with. The Embassy makes them care of the place.

Best thing to do for Embssy or foreign military is to offer lawn cutting, leaf raking, and yard cleanup in the lease at a higher rent. The Embassy will pay the higher rent, but will not reimburse the tenants if they hire people to do the work.

Second best reason for renting to all military and Embassy folks: they are stable human beings and do not want to bring in emotional support animals to make their lives bearable.

This has been my experience. I've been renting a 4 bedroom house in southern Fairfax County to US military officers for the last 15 years. Six different officers ranked 0-3 to 0-6 and all have been excellent tenants. Have only had one tenant leave early due to unexpected deployment. Several of them did minor upgrades in the house at no cost. Just very honest and reliable individuals with security clearances to maintain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you tell us the specific Facebook groups to post housing for diplomats or embassy personnel?

Get in touch with the embassies directly. A friend has rented their Bethesda house to German diplomats for years and does it through the embassy.

We ahve several embassy rentals in our neighborhood in Bethesda. The tenants are always from the same country. We have a German house, a couple of Japanese houses, and a couple of others. The Japanese diplomats like being in the Whitman district, there were several Japanese kids at the high school, and a Japanese language program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Never rent to embassy people because they're not subject to any laws here.

You sound ignorant. They can have diplomatic immunity and be whisked out of the country after breaking the law to avoid prosecution, but they can’t stay and break laws.

I rented our home 4 years to an embassy family. They were perfect tenants. We didn’t recruit them specifically but our management agent just posted on various rental sites and the embassy reached out with an interested family, and thereafter followed 4 years of rent checks from the embassy.

[Anonymous]

Am I the only one who is skeptical that someone thinks that BCC has a "1B" program knows as much as they think?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you need is to rent to American state department employees who are on their mandatory three year rotation to DC. I can tell you they are always on the hunt for a good rental because no one wants to buy here. Some are also here on language training but that will be a one year rental. They would also pay very well for furnished housing. There are several Facebook groups that cater to helping State Department employees find rentals in DC. Post there and your place will be snatched up right away.

They don’t have a lot to spend

Yeah they have these max govt amounts to spend that are not particularly high for good neighborhoods with good schools and also have weird lease lengths sometimes (11 month assignment.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Am I the only one who is skeptical that someone thinks that BCC has a "1B" program knows as much as they think?

They probably mean IB program. And yes, BCC has one which is attractive to some foreigners for whom IB is more relevant than APs (and also some non-foreigners.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What you need is to rent to American state department employees who are on their mandatory three year rotation to DC. I can tell you they are always on the hunt for a good rental because no one wants to buy here. Some are also here on language training but that will be a one year rental. They would also pay very well for furnished housing. There are several Facebook groups that cater to helping State Department employees find rentals in DC. Post there and your place will be snatched up right away.

Arlington landlord here. I never rent to State Dept. people. They are the most entitled people and are used to having embassy housing offices or local staff take care of everything for them. They treated me like their staff and called me if a lightbulb needed replacement, despite what the lease said.

Best renters are US military because they know how to take care of houses and will do their own yard work and take care of houses because they are often landlords elsewhere and respect houses.

The Dutch and Australian military have their own housing offices and are very easy to deal with. The Embassy makes them care of the place.

Best thing to do for Embssy or foreign military is to offer lawn cutting, leaf raking, and yard cleanup in the lease at a higher rent. The Embassy will pay the higher rent, but will not reimburse the tenants if they hire people to do the work.

Second best reason for renting to all military and Embassy folks: they are stable human beings and do not want to bring in emotional support animals to make their lives bearable.

I too am a landlord in Arlington and my husband is a "diplomat". We live overseas. I could not agree more with your assessment of the DOS employees. They are truly the most entitled and low-caliber people I have ever met. They can hardly figure out how to flush their own toilets, or alter the thermostats in their homes. I would never rent to one, but if you must, try to get your listing on the Trailing Houses Facebook group. Be aware, though, that they are often poor and/or cheap and despite living for free overseas for many years. Most cannot fathom rent of over $3500 or so a month. So that's limiting. They often come with their foreign-born "helpers" whom they enslave to raise their many poorly-behaved children. So you will be renting to a family of 5 or 6, plus their helper. They will destroy your house because they're not used to taking care of anything.

We have rented our property in North Arlington for the past seven years to military attaches from the Australian embassy. They are great tenants and have a lot more common sense than most renters would. If your house is appropriate, they will find it on the open market. They always work with a local realtor and are extremely easy to deal with.