Should I Rent or Should I Sell?????
This is a question we hear a lot and the answer is...... it depends.
If you do not want anything to do with renting your home or someone else living in your home, then selling is the only option. Have a professional Realtor complete a Market Evaluation on your home and cover all the options you have when it comes to selling.
If you are ok with renting, but concerned about tenants tearing up your home, you may want to consider renting if you can not sell for the amount you hope to. Here are a few tips about renting/leasing your home:
- Leave all your emotions at the house when you move out. - That may sound harsh, however the majority of the time people will not maintain your home the way you do. When you rent/lease your home, it becomes an invest property and decisions made about the home need to be treated that way. Meaning, if something gets broken the questions are: Who's responsible for making the repair? How much will it cost? How can we prevent it from happening again? and NOT Why did they break it? It took a whole weekend to put that in and we loved that!!
- Don't rent it yourself, select a property management company you are comfortable with. - Today you need a property management company to screen potential tenants, verify rental history, make sure payment is collected each month, complete inspections on the property periodically on your behalf, be on call for maintenance issues and have a pool of contractors that are reasonably priced. Not to mention the trust account requirements and differences in lease agreements property management companies use that are designed to protect YOU the owner.
- Establish a separate account for the property. - This will enable you to have a savings for that specific property to pull money for maintenance/repairs or times the property is vacant.
- Think about refinancing. - Look at the current interest rate of your mortgage, if it is more than 1% of today's rates, you may want to consider refinancing to bring your payment down. This will add a little to the principle balance owed on the loan (approx 2% of the loan), but will bring your monthly payments down so you can net more each month (I've seen this reduce monthly payments by $100-$200). You can contact a lender HERE to get started with refinancing or to just find out if it is the right thing for you!
Again, these are just a few tips if you decide to rent/lease your home out. For more information, contact us anytime with questions you may have about renting/leasing out your home.
ALWAYS Consult with a Professional Realtor to help you make the right decision for you.
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