Hello,

I am trying to help my sister who lives in Zion, IL. She is getting divorced and looking for a house to rent. Does anyone have a property?

Zillow, craigslist, facebook marketplace, apartments.com and word-of-mouth are all good places to start. But, your sister really needs to be doing the looking. She needs to go over her finances, make realistic expectations on what she can afford. She needs to have first month’s rent and security deposit ready.

And, as someone who has been married long term, I seriously urge them to try marriage counseling and financial counseling before getting a divorce. Most people I see getting divorced really could have made a go of it. Marriage is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, AND one of the most rewarding. If your sister needs family to do the work to find a place to live, makes me wonder if she was willing to do the work to keep a marriage together, or was she ‘just hoping’ it would work out. Marriage takes work. Supporting oneself takes work. Finding a place to live takes work. Fixing an existing marriage is probably less work, though more intense.

Don’t list her excuses in response to this, please. Landlords have no interest in becoming her support system. We look for tenants who have their feet on the ground, we don’t want to ‘catch’ someone who is falling, lest they crush us.

When your relative has income, plans, and a realistic price range that she can and will pay for rent each month, then she’ll find something. Until then, if the marriage cannot be saved, then your best bet might be to send her a plane ticket to live with you. If that doesn’t appeal to you, then you can understand the same reasons a landlord wouldn’t be jumping up with joy to rent to her.