rent the s&b or sell it

[jeanontheroad]

Before we decided to sell the house, I tried to persuade a friend to live here for a couple years while we traveled. The place is paid for. All she would have to pay would be her utilities, which would run about $200-250 a month. We would even leave a satellite cable box for her. I have known this woman for years. She is responsible, quiet and neat almost to the point of being OCD about it. She was also willing to let my son's bees stay in the backyard, which was a plus.

Unfortunately (for us), an opportunity to buy her own place came up and she did so. A friend of my DIL's was suggested as a renter as soon as it was known that the other arrangement had collapsed. From what I know of this woman and her finances, pigs would soar over the frozen wastelands of hell before I would let her rent the house.

We had earlier thought of keeping the house as an investment. We did not want to come back to it. Extra rental income was tempting. Having heard and seen several rental horror stories, tho, we decided to sell.

What experiences have others had?

 

[dragonflyinthesky]

Sell the sob. That's why I'm still being drained of money. Try not to land contract, those people can be worse than renters because you are lulled into a false sense of security and think contracts mean something.

There are people who have good rentals that make money from them, as there are women who have painless child birth and infants that sleep through the night. I'm sure it can happen.

Dragonfly

 

[ccbreder]

being a landlord is among the most difficult jobs. being an absentee landlord is impossible to do well. if you have a property manager, they will make the profit. sell and invest the money, it doesn't take much to earn 5% these days.

 

[rvwandering]

We had rental property for many years but we were always there to manage it, maintain it and do emergency repairs. We sold it all when we started fulltiming. We didn't make very much money while we had it but the rents did pay the mortgages and we made a little profit when we sold the properties. It was a lot of work and it would not have been worth it for us to keep the properties if we had to have it managed by somebody else.

Unless you really love the house and are sure that you want to live in it again someday - sell it.

 

[jeanontheroad]

People's experiences seem to be about what I thought. We do not want to come back here. Too much upkeep. We would have to hire a manager and take our chances or just leave it empty if we kept it.

The house will be sold.

 

[Patrick46]

Yeah, it would suck to be out on the road and get one of those phone calls..."the water heater just blew up and the back half of 'your' house is now saturated, very sorry, but we're moving out!"

I'd have a hard time being out of range to keep an eye on the place, so I'd never be able to truely relax the way I'd like to. So yep, I'd sell it too.

 

[mockturtle]

By all means, sell!

 

[hippiechk]

Yuppers...sell the s&b. I did the absentee landlord gig and even with Journeymen tradesmen of all sorts in the family in the town with the house it was a PITA...ruined fruit trees, raised garden beds choked with weeds instead of the covers that were hinged and only had to be dropped getting done...