How does that work out? I have been operating residential and small commercial rentals for many years, and it seems that being close by is a plus. Does anyone hang onto their rentals when going full time? Do you hire a professional manager?Thanks, Joel

I had 5 rental houses for about 15 years. Everything went pretty well during the years that I was working because I was close by and always in the near vicinity of the rentals. When I retired, I informed my renters that I would be in the southwest during the winter months. I was amazed at how many of the renters started having "hard luck" problems and were going to be late on the rent when I was gone for the winter. They knew I wasn't going to drive 1500 miles to try and collect the rent if they were late, or try and do a long distance eviction.I started selling the houses one by one until I got rid of all of them. In other words, being an out of area landlord didn't work for me. I've heard every excuse in the book concerning hard luck stories and being late on rent. It tripled when they knew I was out of the area. I would suggest getting a property manager, or sell them.

I have a handy man who does it all. works ok. we don,t tell any body but him where were going, but my people are all long term renters in the ten plus year range most fix things themselves. if you got good people? go for it.

We did for 10 years. We had 5 duplexes and had 9 apartments rented. We did everything ourselves, but had a tenant who collected rent and took care of small stuff. If it wasn't something he could fix, he had phone numbers to call. That worked okay for us. We, however, did all the renting, so if someone moved out during the winter months, it sat empty till we got back. It worked well, but as we got older, we didn't want to do that much physical work and we also wanted to travel more in the summer.We started selling off 3 years ago. Sold 2 one year and 2 the next, all to the same family, all for cash. Easy peasy. We have one left, the one we have used for storage, etc. We are going to work hard at getting it cleaned out this next summer and ready to sell. Same buyer wants it as well as the tenant in the back apartment, so still have a cash buyer in the wings. We were very reasonable on our rents so didn't have problem tenants. Didn't want to use a property management outfit. Saw apartments where they were involved and they didn't take the care we did with ours. We wanted to maintain the care and quality of our units. They still look nice. It can be done, but I have to say. . . it's a liberating feeling to be done with it. This summer we visited with the family who bought all of ours and they were complaining about all the work they had waiting for them. . . Better them than us! We put the money in investments and can draw as much as we need out every month. Dale

hotjag1 wrote:I had 5 rental houses for about 15 years. Everything went pretty well during the years that I was working because I was close by and always in the near vicinity of the rentals. When I retired, I informed my renters that I would be in the southwest during the winter months. I was amazed at how many of the renters started having "hard luck" problems and were going to be late on the rent when I was gone for the winter. They knew I wasn't going to drive 1500 miles to try and collect the rent if they were late, or try and do a long distance eviction.I started selling the houses one by one until I got rid of all of them. In other words, being an out of area landlord didn't work for me. I've heard every excuse in the book concerning hard luck stories and being late on rent. It tripled when they knew I was out of the area. I would suggest getting a property manager, or sell them.EXACTLY X2

I have one rental property and if I wasn't local to it, I would use a property management. Hard to do anything long distance when you are on the road.Find a respectable one... usually some real estate agents/offices also do rentals. Generally 10 percent of rent. Tack it on to the rent and no impact from a monetary perspective, until they don't pay. I suspect the rental agency will take their 10 percent regardless, so be prepared for that.Mike

Does anyone live off rental property while full timing?

Life_In_Serenit
Explorer
Oct 28, 2016
We just entered the world of full timing. We decided to keep our house and rent it out. The income wont support us while we are on the road but it helps. But it has been a hassle so far. Rent seems to be late and we had a few issues that we had to deal with while we were away. We are lucky enough to have a very good friend in our home town that keeps an eye on our house and is a retired maintenance person so he handles all the little stuf
.https://goo.gl/z67mgT
Walaby
Explorer II
Oct 25, 2016
If you took depreciation of the rental when filing taxes, and you sell, you are going to get hammered, not only on taxes, but you get taxed on the claimed depreciation for all the years you claimed it.

I have a piece of rental property that I took off the rental market and it is now a second home for me. I need to keep it as a second home for two years in order to avoid all the additional taxes. When I calculated everything between tax on depreciation, capital gains tax, tax on anything I made after paying off any mortage, I was going to lose my BUTT big time.

Make sure you research all the impacts of selling while it is still a rental business.

Mike
CA_Traveler
Explorer III
Oct 25, 2016
pawatt wrote:
You will pay a lot of taxes if you sell off.
X2

We have one rental left and hope to leave it to the kids. That will trigger a stepped up basis and they will not owe any taxes.
restlesswind
Explorer
Oct 24, 2016
We rent out the home we had in CA. It has worked pretty well for us for the past 10+ years (9 1/2 years full timing) The income has paid for a second home in AZ and now pays all the expenses of the second home. So it has worked for us. And yes we do have a management company.
time2roll
Nomad
Oct 24, 2016
Hemi Joel wrote:
How does that work out? I have been operating residential and small commercial rentals for many years, and it seems that being close by is a plus. Does anyone hang onto their rentals when going full time? Do you hire a professional manager?

Thanks, Joel
Since you have experience I think you will do fine. Yes I recommend finding a professional manager so you can retire. Not just some person but a real company. This would not be the time to learn the ropes.

I own/manage several residential units and plan to hire a manager at some point to retire. I do less and less hands on management and repairs and hire out more and more.
ependydad
Explorer
Oct 24, 2016
I'm about 16 months into renting my house out. So far so good, knock on wood. I did opt for a property management company.

For that, I put some feelers out with family and friends in my local area. I then went to Google to lookup local folks and did checks on reviews. Ultimately, I interviewed 3 different ones. We picked from them and have been happy since.

Though, my personal situation is that I'm losing money and plan on selling come June.
JAXFL
Explorer
Oct 10, 2016
Rentals from a distance is a no no... Even with property managers that suddenly retire, hard luck stories, broken things that cost more than the rent... I did it for a few years... And lost several thousands of dollars dumping the headaches...
tinner12002
Explorer
Oct 10, 2016
Don't think I'd want the headache involved with rentals in a situation like that.
Kevin_Todd
Explorer
Oct 09, 2016
We have rental property, but are still working at this time. I have a partner that I have been in real estate with for several years. My plans are to sell and take the profits, and as mentioned earlier, there is some tax burdens associated with that. They are all paid for, and I've owned them for long enough to avoid the short term gains. My main goal was to use this along with my deferred accounts to retire and things are getting closer. I plan on continuing to flip properties, keeping a home base and traveling when we want. Sounds good anyway.....
NYCgrrl
Explorer
Oct 09, 2016
Agreeing on advice that recommends a property mgmt. company. How to find a good one? Ask friends, local Realtors and real estate brokers. Do a walk through of properties the person or company currently manages to see if they keep up to your standards. When interviewing them see what advice they give about possible defaults in your current properties' mechanical and roofing systems. I always did this for prospective clients in writing. This protected me from any future responsibility and put the owner on notice of where their money needed to be spent to maintain their investment and tenants' homes.