Need advice from those that rent their house out

[phorsenuf]

Since our house is not selling and we would really like to be in Fl by the end of August we are thinking about renting it.

For those here that do, do you manage it yourself? Hire a property management company? How did you find your tenants? What did you do to screen them?

Any advice would be a great help. Thanks!!

 

[happygirl]

I think it easiest to use a Rental agency

 

[phorsenuf]

I think it easiest to use a Rental agency

Is that what you did? What was your experience with them like.

 

[sau418]

DH owned a home in Jacksonville and after moving back to Pittsburgh, he continued to own it and rent it out. He used an agency for property management. It was much easier if there were any problems as the agent was there to stop over and see the problem as well as to find a reputable repair company. When he was ready to sell it they were able to assist with getting it ready to sell, we never even had to do anything but sign the selling papers when it was ready to go.

 

[happygirl]

Is that what you did? What was your experience with them like.

I have never personally . I have a friend that has rental properties and he loves it. You don't have to worry about background checks they will do it for you. If there is any problems and things that breaks during the night. You don't get a late night call. You don't have to hear complaints.

 

[momrek06]

Ohh..I am jumping in on this thread as well....(is that ok, OP?)

I would love to hear DISer's thoughts on this...we have had our MA home on the market for 6 months. It is NOT even the price, OP, no one is even looking. We are in "talks" with our RE Agent about renting but he does NOT like this idea. He states what he sees is people move in, pay a month or two rent ON TIME...then before you know it, they are late, they miss a month or two and either do one of two things....just LEAVE the property with no way of tracking them down OR they wait until you try to get them evicted. AND he said, do not expect your house to be kept in good condition...

My home is just 3 years old, custom built. With the construction business so off in New England, DH was offered an amazing job in Southern California. Soooo now what to do with the house.

Subscribing.

 

[phorsenuf]

Ohh..I am jumping in on this thread as well....(is that ok, OP?)

I would love to hear DISer's thoughts on this...we have had our MA home on the market for 6 months. It is NOT even the price, OP, no one is even looking. We are in "talks" with our RE Agent about renting but he does NOT like this idea. He states what he sees is people move in, pay a month or two rent ON TIME...then before you know it, they are late, they miss a month or two and either do one of two things....just LEAVE the property with no way of tracking them down OR they wait until you try to get them evicted. AND he said, do not expect your house to be kept in good condition...

My home is just 3 years old, custom built. With the construction business so off in New England, DH was offered an amazing job in Southern California. Soooo now what to do with the house.

Subscribing.

Of course you can join in. I'm kinda surprised by your agents attitude. It was my agent who referred me to a property management company. She totally gets where we are coming from and thinks its not a bad idea. See where things are with the market next year.
I even asked my agent about lowering the price. She said we could try it but if we do take it off the market and then try again next year it could actually hurt us. I love my agent.

This particular company wants the first month rent and then 10% after that.

 

[happygirl]

Of course you can join in. I'm kinda surprised by your agents attitude. It was my agent who referred me to a property management company. She totally gets where we are coming from and thinks its not a bad idea. See where things are with the market next year.
I even asked my agent about lowering the price. She said we could try it but if we do take it off the market and then try again next year it could actually hurt us. I love my agent.

This particular company wants the first month rent and then 10% after that.

That sounds high to me

 

[Kathi OD]

Of course you can join in. I'm kinda surprised by your agents attitude. It was my agent who referred me to a property management company. She totally gets where we are coming from and thinks its not a bad idea. See where things are with the market next year.
I even asked my agent about lowering the price. She said we could try it but if we do take it off the market and then try again next year it could actually hurt us. I love my agent.

This particular company wants the first month rent and then 10% after that.

I don't know that I agree with this statement. I'm don't know how long your house has been on the market, but if it's been more than a couple of months, it's a "stale" property. People who are in the market to buy now have either passed on it, or will be wondering why it hasn't sold yet. Taking it off the market for a year and then relisting will capture a new group of potential buyers who will view it as a new, or "fresh" listing.

As far as the rental issue is concerned....DH and I have a couple of properties that we rent. We manage them ourselves. HOWEVER, we live no more than 20 minutes from any of them, DH is quite handy and can do many of the repairs himself. If we were moving 1000 miles away from our properties, we would be hiring a management company. It will be a nightmare to try and manage the property yourself when you're that far away.

The management company will be able to take care of everything from finding a tenant to making sure that any necessary emergency repairs are done. Example: Ssppose the tenant calls and says there is a water leak. How are you going to make sure the problem is taken care of properly if you are in Florida? That's one of the things the management company will take care of for you.

 

[brockash]

I think it easiest to use a Rental agency

I agree. This is what we do, and it's worked out pretty well. The property manager is the one that finds the tentants (well really usually the tentants will come to the company looking.) Our fee is 10% of the rented price (I think well worth it.) Our house that we rent out is around a military installation, which I'm sure makes it easier. What's your area like? Our house has basically stayed rented out all, but about 2 months since we started (about 5 years ago.) One thing to be mindful about is that you should try to give yourself a little room financially speaking. The property manager will take their fee, but often times there will be some kind of maintence that needed to be done, and you as the home owner will be responsible for it.

 

[momrek06]

Since our house is not selling and we would really like to be in Fl by the end of August we are thinking about renting it.

For those here that do, do you manage it yourself? Hire a property management company? How did you find your tenants? What did you do to screen them?

Any advice would be a great help. Thanks!!

OP, howdy!! Just wondering what direction you have decided to go in?

We are tossing it around seriously..the property management route. I am coming home to MA for the month of August and clean out the house. Sell everything...yard sales, garage sales, craigslist and give items to family.

It is so overwhelming. DH's company paid to move the items that we wanted and our cars...so now those items we did not want, I know need to get rid of...and get this house ready for renters.
We have put this off too long.

I am going to rent some of those 6 yard dumpsters as well.

 

[phorsenuf]

OP, howdy!! Just wondering what direction you have decided to go in?

We are tossing it around seriously..the property management route. I am coming home to MA for the month of August and clean out the house. Sell everything...yard sales, garage sales, craigslist and give items to family.

It is so overwhelming. DH's company paid to move the items that we wanted and our cars...so now those items we did not want, I know need to get rid of...and get this house ready for renters.
We have put this off too long.

I am going to rent some of those 6 yard dumpsters as well.

We are biting the bullet and going to rent it. I did try to rent it myself but no go. So we are packing up and heading out in the next few weeks, or as soon as I pull it together.
Even though the initial payment is high we decided to just do it. Time to poop or get off the pot.

I'm getting a dumpster in this week, a 12 yarder (I think). It's one of the long ones. I'm being ruthless. Starting in the garage tomorrow and what I don't want is either getting tossed out or tossed into the yard and I'm having a dollar sale on Saturday. Hopefully by Monday I'll get the POD delivered and start packing that up too. Since it's mostly just me here I can start loading furniture in. I really don't need my kitchen set, hutch or desk so in it goes. Mot of the furniture I don't need anyways. Also going to hire some kids to help do the grunt work.

Can't believe it's actually happening!

We'll try selling again next year. Hopefully things will be better.

 

[momrek06]

OK, OP, I did it!!!!!!!! We hired a "property management" firm and in 24 hours the house was rented AND exactly for what we wanted!!! We are thrilled.

I am soooooooooooo glad I read your thread and went ahead with renting. No one is buying in our area and I just could not imagine my house sitting empty for the winter.

I have been in MA for 3 weeks now. One week was a vacation/family reunion in Maine and the last 2 weeks I have spent cleaning my house and holding moving sales. I managed to sell absolutely everything we needed to. YIPPEE!

I will say this has probably been one of the hardest tasks I have ever taken on...to clean out this entire house, organize what items are to be shipped to SoCal, which items are to go to my In-laws in Ct, which items stay in the house and which items are trash. I am physically and mentally exhausted. Our moving sales were extremely successful as I kept the prices cheap. We had a builder actually divide our basement in half and build a "wall" with a door to store items we were leaving for future use. We ordered a 15 yard ($300.00) and anything we did not sell at the sale, we threw in the dumpster.

So we are "GOLDEN" now. Our renters are thrilled with the house and actually bought so much of my furniture. We leave on Wed for SoCal with so much "peace of mind"!!!!

 

[luvflorida]

I see we have New Hampshire and Massachusetts here, and now Maine. I guess nobody is buying houses in New England.

We had to be on the other side of the country by the end of August last year, so we put our house (southern Maine) up for sale last spring, in the hopes that it would sell before we left in August. Didn't happen. It sat on the market for one year, May '08-May'09. We didn't even get one offer, even after lowering the price. The house is very nice and was priced lower than the appraisal.

We did not want to continue paying for two houses, so we decided to take it off the market and rent it out. It was a tough decision to make because of all the rental horror stories we've heard. My husband and I also decided not to go with a property management company, so we've done everything ourselves. We listed the house on Craigslist and by the end of the day, we had the house rented.

We had people from all across the country replying to our ad. We were actually shocked at how many people are looking to rent a house. The funny thing is that the first person that called and came out to see the house was someone that lives in the next town over from us, and turns out that my husband knows him through his computer business.

We looked at rental agreements and rental contracts online, and drew up one that fits our needs and requirements. We spent June and most of July in Maine, and on August 1st, the tenants moved into our house. We had already emptied most of our stuff out of our house, but still had to rent a small U-Haul trailer to transport stuff back here (Arizona), furniture and things that we had left behind to use whenever we were in Maine.

We had two yard sales, gave away lots and lots of stuff to friends and family members, threw away tons of junk, and put more than one pile of stuff next to a "Free" sign by the end of our driveway. Incredible all the stuff one accumulates over the years! Then we had all the empty and half-empty cans of paint and other such stuff sitting in the shed and basement that had to be disposed of in a proper manner. I also repainted several rooms in more neutral colors and gave the house one last good cleaning.

So far, so good. Of course, it's only been a month. In our lease agreement, our tenant pays the rent and all utilities. We will provide and pay for snow plowing and, if necessary, snow removal. We also take care of landscaping, mowing, tree work, etc. We have a lawncare guy that comes on a weekly basis (less when the weather cools down) and he is quite the character. He told us that he'll keep an eye on things and that he "has our back". We also have a friend across the street that we know will alert us if she sees anything alarming going on, and we have relatives in the area that would help us out if we need them for anything.

Our tenants signed a one year lease, so at the end of it, we'll have to decide what we're going to do- keep renting the house or put it on the market again.

Good luck to everyone renting. I hope this thread continues to survive. It would be interesting to see how the rental process works out for everyone!

 

[DebIreland]

This recession is truly global. I'm in Ireland and we have our house on the market for the last 3 months with just 2 viewers in that time and no real interest. We're gonna give it til next spring at the latest and if it's still unsold we'll have to rent it out.

I really wanted to start fresh when we move and have this sold but it's not happening. My main fear about renting is getting phone calls about things going wrong and having to come up with the money to get things fixed - it seems like such a big responsibility. Especially as we're not DIY people at all so we can't do these things ourselves.

The plus side I guess is that we'll be renting when we move and this way we'll still own a property (admittedly an asset ever-decreasing in value!).

 

[momrek06]

I see we have New Hampshire and Massachusetts here, and now Maine. I guess nobody is buying houses in New England.

We had to be on the other side of the country by the end of August last year, so we put our house (southern Maine) up for sale last spring, in the hopes that it would sell before we left in August. Didn't happen. It sat on the market for one year, May '08-May'09. We didn't even get one offer, even after lowering the price. The house is very nice and was priced lower than the appraisal.

We did not want to continue paying for two houses, so we decided to take it off the market and rent it out. It was a tough decision to make because of all the rental horror stories we've heard. My husband and I also decided not to go with a property management company, so we've done everything ourselves. We listed the house on Craigslist and by the end of the day, we had the house rented.

We had people from all across the country replying to our ad. We were actually shocked at how many people are looking to rent a house. The funny thing is that the first person that called and came out to see the house was someone that lives in the next town over from us, and turns out that my husband knows him through his computer business.

We looked at rental agreements and rental contracts online, and drew up one that fits our needs and requirements. We spent June and most of July in Maine, and on August 1st, the tenants moved into our house. We had already emptied most of our stuff out of our house, but still had to rent a small U-Haul trailer to transport stuff back here (Arizona), furniture and things that we had left behind to use whenever we were in Maine.

We had two yard sales, gave away lots and lots of stuff to friends and family members, threw away tons of junk, and put more than one pile of stuff next to a "Free" sign by the end of our driveway. Incredible all the stuff one accumulates over the years! Then we had all the empty and half-empty cans of paint and other such stuff sitting in the shed and basement that had to be disposed of in a proper manner. I also repainted several rooms in more neutral colors and gave the house one last good cleaning.

So far, so good. Of course, it's only been a month. In our lease agreement, our tenant pays the rent and all utilities. We will provide and pay for snow plowing and, if necessary, snow removal. We also take care of landscaping, mowing, tree work, etc. We have a lawncare guy that comes on a weekly basis (less when the weather cools down) and he is quite the character. He told us that he'll keep an eye on things and that he "has our back". We also have a friend across the street that we know will alert us if she sees anything alarming going on, and we have relatives in the area that would help us out if we need them for anything.

Our tenants signed a one year lease, so at the end of it, we'll have to decide what we're going to do- keep renting the house or put it on the market again.

Good luck to everyone renting. I hope this thread continues to survive. It would be interesting to see how the rental process works out for everyone!

Wow, that is amazing, luv, that you totally went in the same direction as we did. We actually have our home and 2 empty buildable lots all manicured...well the ONLY offer we received was on Aug 1st for our home and 1/2 of one of the lots...the offer was ridiculous as well as the option of 1/2 of one lot so we turned it down. The contract with our RE Broker actually expired in JAN. So we went to meet with a "Property Manager" in town. PM had our home rented in 24 hours. YIPPEE!! His fee is one months rent. PM does the 3 credit agency checks, criminal checks, landlord references and employment references on the potential renters.

Well the renters were glowing...they are a police officer and a director of an animal rescue league.

For 10% of the rent monthly the PM will handle every possible issue with the house = full service management. They will collect the rent (direct deposit into our account), schedule any maintenace repairs and make surprise inspections (calling the renters several hours prior to a visit) to the property.

Our renters signed a one year lease and contract with the PM. They will pay the rent and all the utilities as well as trash services, lawn services AND snowplowing. We will continue to maintain (mow) the two lots. I left my 8yo washer and dryer and they will be responsible for any repairs needed. I was going to give them away but the renters wanted them.
The lease/contract also requires the renters to secure renter's insurance and add a "rider" for their pets (for any pet damage). They have a dog and cat. No smoking on the property. They will pay for water and sewer usage for the "cycles" they are in the house. (I believe this is NEW). No one else is to live on the property accept for the two listed on the lease. They are allowed to park their boat on the side of the house.

PM for us = peace of mind!

I, as well, have many friends in town that will be going by checking out the house for us.

We will see how this goes with renting as well. If the market rebounds then we will try putting it back on next year OR rent it out again.

 

[Meriweather]

WA piping in here
House has been for sale for 17 months now. We are rural. A lot of lookers turn around after crossing the bridge from town saying "too far".
I do not want to rent
I do not want the worry....and want the equity to put into the new house.
We do have that new house in AZ. DD is living in it now taking care of it. Has been since last Nov.
So we stay here.
We have lowered the price quite a bit.....will not go lower. Just hoping the market improves soon.
The lower priced house sales are picking up, so hopefully the trickle up will be happening soon.

Good luck to everyone.

 

[eeyore65]

I'm in FL and we rented ours. We did use a rental agent but not a property management company. We did get a home warranty - so any thing that breaks is covered under the warranty. Our renters are VERY picky about stuff so they call the warranty company all the time. We also hear from them on stupid stuff - they don't like the way the bushes are cut (hmmm, they don't own the bushes and we pay the landscaper) Luckily, DH handles most of this, I would have no patience.

Despite their high maintenence, I am happy we rented it. It is positively cash flowing for us (we had no mortgage) and it is better then shelling out the monthly expenses on an empty house.

The downside is that the market could be worse when we try and sell after the lease. But like others on here - I'm not sure it is the price but just the market.

 

[DMickey28]

Man ... I wish I knew where in NH you were! We just signed the contract on a house in Southern New Hampshire. We are hoping to close in mid October and now have an empty house to furnish!!

 

[momrek06]

WA piping in here
House has been for sale for 17 months now. We are rural. A lot of lookers turn around after crossing the bridge from town saying "too far".
I do not want to rent
I do not want the worry....and want the equity to put into the new house.
We do have that new house in AZ. DD is living in it now taking care of it. Has been since last Nov.
So we stay here.
We have lowered the price quite a bit.....will not go lower. Just hoping the market improves soon.
The lower priced house sales are picking up, so hopefully the trickle up will be happening soon.

Good luck to everyone.

Believe me, we did not want to rent either...but I could see as I walked around my house little things happening when NO ONE is in the house. I would prefer that someone is living in it. Going with a Property Management Firm has given us the peace of mind we needed. Not to mention that the renters paying the rent and the utilities saves us $2000.00 a month we were paying out for an empty house.

Like you, we were lowering and lowering the price. My home is a 4yo custom built. I was NOT going to give it away. So now we will rent it out and if the market rebounds we will try to sell it again in a year.

I'm in FL and we rented ours. We did use a rental agent but not a property management company. We did get a home warranty - so any thing that breaks is covered under the warranty. Our renters are VERY picky about stuff so they call the warranty company all the time. We also hear from them on stupid stuff - they don't like the way the bushes are cut (hmmm, they don't own the bushes and we pay the landscaper) Luckily, DH handles most of this, I would have no patience.

Despite their high maintenence, I am happy we rented it. It is positively cash flowing for us (we had no mortgage) and it is better then shelling out the monthly expenses on an empty house.

The downside is that the market could be worse when we try and sell after the lease. But like others on here - I'm not sure it is the price but just the market.

With the Property Management Firm, our renters call THEM. My PM told DH & I that this is a business transaction and we are NOT to be their friends. Keep this all business. We are the landlords and they are the renters. PERIOD.
Any issues they have at all with the house, they will contact the PM and he will contact us if need be.

My DSon picked up a great book at Borders for me..."First Time Landlord", a guide to renting out a single family home!!! It is awesome!!!