Can't Sell It? Rent It Out

It was an unsuccessful attempt to downsize for a smaller house payment that led Joseph Cortez, a realtor in Corpus Christi, TX, to become a landlord.

“My wife and I started building a house because we were pregnant with our first child,” he explains. “In an attempt to downgrade our payment, we built a house 300-square-feet smaller than our current one. But in the process, we had several weather delays, and construction took longer than expected. My wife became more pregnant and she and the house were due around the same time.”

When the Cortezes thought of moving with a newborn, they were overwhelmed, so they put their new house on the market. But it wasn’t as easy to sell as they had hoped. After a good deal of interest but no offers, the couple was asked if they would allow someone to rent for a year, then buy the home. “We took it,” he says. “We make approximately $15 a month in profit.”

The circumstances may be different, but the story is the same for homeowners across the nation. As the market continues to sputter, some who had hoped to sell are now finding themselves turning into reluctant landlords.

Deciding to Rent Out Your Home
The decision to rent your home out can be a tough one, both emotionally and financially.

Decide if the loss you would take by selling the home for less than you owe now is more than any loss you’d sustain while renting it out, says Bret Holmes, president of Advanced Management Group , a property management company based in Las Vegas. “You have to calculate if you were going to sell today, what kind of loss you’d take,” he says. “Then consider how much you’re going to lose in the gap between how much rent you’re bringing in and how long you want to rent it out.” For example, if you have a $100 negative cash flow each month you rent out your house and you think you’ll rent it for two years, you’ll lose $2,400 on the house over that period of time. If that’s more than you’ll lose by selling it at a loss, it’s probably best to just get it over with, Holmes explains. Otherwise, he says, renting it makes sense.

Emotionally, of course, there’s an entirely other set of issues. “It creates emotional ties and makes it hard to see someone not take as great care of the property as the owner once did,” Cortez says. You have to step back and look at it objectively to be a better landlord.

Know Your Local Laws
The first thing you should do if you decide to rent is research your local laws. For some areas, you may have to have a business license if you want to rent your home.

"We had to get a business license from the Washington, D.C., government when we leased our property,” explains Bronagh Hanley, who became a landlord when she moved from D.C. to the West Coast with her husband and the couple decided they didn’t want to sell their home they’d worked on so hard for so long. But Hanley didn’t anticipate the difficulties with getting the document. “It took forever,” she said. “They had random repairs they wanted us to make, there was a substantial fee, and they had to schedule an inspector to come to the house.” The whole process took about a month, and Hanley says this is something potential homeowner/landlords need to keep in mind because not only can it disrupt your timetable, it is also emotionally exhausting.

Potential landlords also need to educate themselves about equal housing opportunity laws says Braun Mincher, president and managing broker of Aggie Real Estate LLC and Aggie Commercial LLC   in Fort Collins, CO. “If you do something like charge a larger deposit because a family has a pet, that’s fairly standard practice and wouldn’t be considered discrimination,” he explains. “But you obviously can’t change your practices based on race, sex, creed, culture, religion, or anything else like that. It has to be based on your actual risk.”

Finding the Right Rent Price
Deciding what to charge on rent can be tricky, Mincher says, because often the amount you could rent a property for isn’t really connected to what you should be able to sell the property for.

“That’s hard for a lot of people to understand because they want to make up that mortgage payment,” Holmes says.

And while how much you’re paying the bank will figure in somewhat to what you charge, it’s key to do your research on what similar houses are renting for, much like you’d look at comparative properties when figuring out an asking price for sales.

“Of course you want to take a realistic look at your PITI [principal, interest, taxes and insurance payment costs] if you have a payment on the home, which most people do,” he says. “But you also have to consider what the market will bear in terms of rent.” Mincher says that if you bought a townhouse at the height of the market, you’re probably not going to make up a $1,200 payment if all the other similar houses are renting for $900 a month.

Another factor to consider is insurance. You will pay more for insurance on a home you’re renting out, despite the fact that you’re not insuring the contents, only the structure. Call your homeowners’ insurance company and talk to them about any rate increases that will result from changing your residence status on the house so you can figure that into the price you’ll charge a renter.

And for homeowners who paid a premium for granite countertops, gorgeous hardwoods, or full-stainless-steel kitchen, there’s more bad news. These extra features don’t necessarily translate into higher rent prices. “You may have less vacancy because of these things, but you’re talking to renters, not buyers,” Mincher explains. “They don’t care as much about your beautiful landscaping. So, figuring out what to charge is a challenge.”

How should the average homeowner who’s thinking about renting confront the challenge? “You really just have to check newspapers and online ads and get a feel for what a home in your price range within about a three-mile radius is going for,” Holmes says. Other good sources of information include a trusted broker or realtor; if you have a good relationship with someone in real estate, he or she may be able to offer you useful advice.

Finding the Right Tenants
Once you’ve priced your house and you have interest from a potential renter, it’s critical to perform due diligence in checking out the person or people you’ll be entrusting your home to.

“On their own, people can verify employment by contacting a current employer,” Holmes says. “Get paycheck stubs to make sure they’re making what they say they’re making. Also do a rental history check. Call previous landlords and see what kind of information you can get.”

Also, consider outsourcing some of the rental screening process. “If a person wants to do a full screening, the process is pretty intensive because you basically become a credit reporting agency,” Holmes says. For that reason, homeowners should consider looking at companies that complete the tenant screening process for you, he says. They’ll do credit checks, eviction checks, criminal background checks, and other similar screenings.

A tenant screening company is how Hanley found her first renters. “We hired a rental management company to find the tenants since they had the skills and resources to do the credit and background checks,” she says. “We paid them a percentage of the first month’s rent for their services. It was well worth the money, since we ended up with an accountant couple from Wisconsin who were the best tenants!”

Are You Ready to Be a Landlord?
Once your tenants are in place, your main duty as landlord is to maintain the property. But if you’re living in a different city, state, or even country, how do you handle it when a pipe breaks or the air conditioning dies mid-August?

“I advise people to get a home warranty program in place,” says Holmes. “Things are going to go wrong — they always do. A home warranty program prevents a huge out-of-pocket expense when it happens.”

Most home warranty programs have a premium you pay once a year. Then, whenever something goes wrong that your homeowner’s insurance won’t cover ­— like a dishwasher that leaks or a refrigerator that won’t cool — you call the home warranty company. You’ll pay a “co-pay,” usually $50 to $60, and the home warranty company picks up the rest of the repair tab.

If you don’t want to pay the initial premium of the home warranty, however, employ a handyman. “Going outside your comfort zone can cost more money than repairmen,” Cortez says. “It’s many times worth it to hire an expert. Find a good all-around handyman that is trustworthy.”