Can't Sell It? Rent It Out

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.”