To Rent or Sell

Well a quick note of thanks, and the update as well. Not that it matters, but with our specific situation, retired almost 8 years ago from a great job, couldn't pass up the opportunity. So we did it and continue to operate our handyman business in which we are very successful. This allows us to maintain a household, enjoy our grandchildren and travel almost as much as we want. With that, we have our home base, all the comforts of home, we park our rv at home with full hook up and yet we are able to travel and enjoy our countries national parks, beautiful scenery while maintaining a life style that is comfortable, financially stable and manageable. So with that, we are going to stay put for now, don't need all the extra stuff, (insurance, mail, home base, tags, taxes, etc.), not to mention where I do my repairs, and maintenance, down time do to an unforeseen illness, etc. to deal with and or worry about. For us, it is more cost effective to keep what we have as home base then sell and downsize and this will allow us to keep on traveling and enjoying what we do. As we continue to get rid of debt, we increase our travel time by about a month per year. right now at about 3 months, not including our little local family trips. So, thanks again for the input, we go through these exercises so we can make logical decisions. Have a great day, and hopefully this information will help others.

midnightsadie wrote:
glad I,m in the 5% range, I have seven houses oldest tenant 23yrs youngest 13yrs I have very little problems, most fix little things them selves, and big things need a pro.

Off topic but your post brought to mind that you must be charging substantially under market rates.

midnightsadie wrote:
glad I,m in the 5% range, I have seven houses oldest tenant 23yrs youngest 13yrs I have very little problems, most fix little things them selves, and big things need a pro.

My leasing company does not and neither do I allow any tenant to 'repair' anything. I want it done professionally not a shoemaker job and it's a write off anyway. Cost of doing business. No painting, no changing fixtures, no nails in the walls either. No pets and no smoking.

Everyone signs a lease, has a credit check and pays a 2 month up front security deposit and I demand renters insurance as well. You hold your standards high you get quality people who can actually pay the rent on time.

None of my houses are dumps, all are brick ranches on acerage with central air and attached garages. I even have a lawn service do the mowing and trimming and a contractor do snow removal.

Took me a little while to get wise, but I am now and turning a profit.

You need to consider the tax consequences of converting a personal home to rental property and then converting it back to personal.

As previously stated, renting your house out to strangers who will not take care of it like you did is fraught with special challenges since there is an emotional component that is absent from property purchased just to rent out.

You should think long and hard before renting your home.

glad I,m in the 5% range, I have seven houses oldest tenant 23yrs youngest 13yrs I have very little problems, most fix little things them selves, and big things need a pro.

beemerphile1 wrote:
Have you ever been a landlord? I have. It is hard enough to control a tenant when you are local, impossible when you are gone.

Who knows? You could get lucky.

I am a landlord..lol Sell it. Being a landlord is a PITA in all but maybe 5% of the situations.

People, as a rule, have little respect for something they don't own, especially today. If I didn't own multiple homes that were almost paid for, I'd get out and I've considered it more than once.

If you absolutely decide on renting yours out, use a leasing company and let them screen the people, collect the rent and handle the upkeep. What I do. Makes life so much easier and worth every penny.

I would sell, several reasons.
1. You may not , after travelling full time want to go back, but would then need to go back and clean up the property after getting tenant out for sales purposes.
2. After travelling, you may discover other places you would rather retire to.
3. As mentioned earlier, being a landlord.

Having Cash in a bank account will never weigh you down or hold you back from doing what you want to do.

JMHO

If you rent you won't have a home base. Someone else is living there.

there are companies that will manage your house as a rental. been there ,and no problems.your going to here good and bad cases on here. we did the interviews then turned the house over to the rental company to manage, worked just fine.

If you don't have experience as a landlord...trying it out from 1000 miles away with the home you love, is a disaster waiting to happen.

If you rent it out, you still need to pull all your stuff out and you still need to wait for the lease to run out before you can get the house back...it's not just, "I'm ready to go home, we'll be there in 3 days".

I'm guessing you are retiring, so this may represent an opportunity to move to a new area or to a smaller house with the kids gone. It's a lot easier to make these choices based on a pile of cash in the bank as opposed to having to come back and sell the house.