<prompt> Human: Im not sure if this question belongs here, but Im not sure who else to ask because my mom doesnt know anything about this stuff and Im not in contact with my dad. I need an adult, though, so here I am. My girlfriend 19 and I 21 are currently living together in a rental house with three other renters and our small dog and our lease expires at the end of May. Weve been looking for houses with no luck for a month now and were starting to worry we wont have a place to go when the lease is up. She found a house on craigslist that seemed nice enough and emailed the owner for details. The email with the owners name and phone number and other details retracted was this:HelloThanks for your interest .I must confess that I am very very new in this landlord business..However, My name is name,I own the house located at address Due to my job as a missionary I spent less time in the States so I could not get a hold on any Realtor to handle this rent issue, although it was when I knew how long we are going to stay in where he lives now, on the opposite coast from us that I decided to rent out the house and i will be here for 4-5 years..How ever,the initial plan was to sale out the house which I tried, but some times the agents inflates the prize and it takes longer to sell i am telling you this in case if you find the house on another website,that is the old advert. because of this reason and more we need a responsible person With good credit that can take very good care of it as we are not after the money , but want it to be clean and for you to take of it as if it were yours The rent is 650 and 450 for Security Deposit...Utilities such as Air Conditioner Dishwasher Walk-in Closet Refrigerator Vaulted Ceilings WasherDryer Cable etc are all included in the rent...Here is my phone number 5555555555PLEASE TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF 1Your Full Name___ 2Current Address___ ___ 3Phone Number ___ 4State___ 5City___ 6 Zip___ 7Are you married___ 8Do you have Kids___ 9Do you have a pet___ 10Do you have a car___ 11Occupation___ 12How many people will be living in the house___ 13Reasons for Leaving present home___ 14How long lease are you looking for___ 15How soon do you intend moving in___ 16Date of Birth___ 17Numbers of Cars___ 18A picture of occupant___ 19How soon you make the payment___ 20How soon do you want to recieve the keysdocuments___ Application Comment Please make sure this questions are fill correctly because the best way you answer with your comment will impress me the more to accept your applications.I know you would want to see the house before making any kind of rental payment , which is understandable.We can make arrangement for the keys and documentation including an Authorization letter to be shipped to you,this will give you the opportunity to view house.Regardsname And Entire Family.Now Im not an expert in renting houses, but this is not what Im used to filling out as an application for a rental property, but we figured that maybe wed get something more official and information for a background check, and an opportunity to see the inside of the house later. We got a text this morning saying that our application had been accepted and that as soon as wed send a check for the security deposit hed email us a lease to sign and send back and mail us a key to the house so that we could go see it. That was a red flag for me. I still havent seen the inside of the house and this guy wants a deposit. Thats not a huge issue for us because at this point were getting desperate to find anywhere that will take us. The issue for me is that thus far, we have seen zero documents that look legit in any way.We told the owner that we arent willing to pay anything until weve seen a lease thats ready to be signed. The offer just seems way too good to be true. 650 a month is really good even for where were at where cost of living is really low and even if we had to pay the utilities ourselves. The house is in great shape based on the pictures weve seen and its not in a bad neighborhood. The fact that they didnt do a backgroundcredit check is at worst suspicious and at best indicates that they have no idea what theyre doing.I guess my question is whether or not its safe to sign a lease at this point. If we sign a lease, will we be subjecting ourselves to any sort of risk? Is this a scam thats way more obvious than I think it is? EDIT: Turns out I was right to be suspicious. I found this property on Zillow and other sites being managed by the same management company that isnt this guy. We gave them a call to let them know that somebody else claims to own it and it turns out they actually just filled it. Thanks for the help everybody.  <response>: This is a scam. If you are lucky, you will mail the deposit and never hear from them again. If you are unlucky, you will mail the deposit, and your social security number, and a shipping fee for the keys, and possibly even get roped into a check fraud. 