Short Sale versus Rental Property: How to Decide in the East Bay

by | Jul 15, 2015 | Property Management Education | 0 comments

Renting out a property you own instead of selling it is a decision you need to reach after careful review and consideration. Whether you rent it out to tenants or sell it depends on several key factors, particularly your economic situation and your emotional attachment to the house.

 

Economics

The first thing you need to consider is whether renting out the home is economically viable for you. It’s important that you pay attention to the market rents in your area at the current time. You have to make sure that the rent you are able to charge for the property will cover the costs and expenses associated with the property and its upkeep. These costs include your mortgage payment, insurance, taxes, what you might pay for a gardener or a pool maintenance person, HOA fees and everything else that needs to be paid for on an ongoing basis.

 

Emotions

In addition to economics, you need to give some thought to whether you can emotionally detach from the property. If you have owned this home and lived there for two years or five years or 10 years or even longer, you might have a hard time renting it out to other people. You have to make sure you can lease the property and leave your emotions behind you. You are essentially turning this property into a business, and you need to be able to think of it as a business and not as your home.

 

Property Management

Finally, you have to think about property management. We always recommend that you have your rental properties professionally managed by a property manager. It’s not that easy to rent out your property and stay on top of the day to day operations of dealing with the house and the tenants, even if you are local to the area where you have the property. You have to make sure you can delegate all of the tasks involved in managing your property to the property manager you choose. The leasing and maintenance will be in the hands of your manager instead of your own. Make Short Sale versus Rental Property How to Decide in the East Baysure you can step away and avoid micromanaging your property manager because he or she will do a much better job for you if you give them the space they need to do what they do best.

 

If you have any questions about property management or you are trying to decide whether to rent or sell your home, please contact us at Windsor Pacific Property Management, and we’d be happy to work with you.