If you rent out a house or handle your own rental property?

[Anonymous]

What advise can you share for a newbie? We need advertising and rental advise.
How did you rent your house, condo or apartment out? Where is the best place to put your ad? Craiglist or newspaper?
What is the # one rule you follow?

Thank you so much! This is our way of saving for our two kids college fee.

[Anonymous]

I just rent to friends, below market rate, and they clean before they leave. This may not be particularly lucrative for you. It covers the mortgage, utilities, plus maintenance for me. The upside is I know these people and they are gentle with the house. Complete strangers tend to be rougher on things.

[Anonymous]

We have a rental property in Montgomery County MD. My best advice is go to the landlord tenant web site on the MoCty website. It is a great resource. We use the standard lease and the standard application (available free of charge from website). We have a copy of the landlord tenant handbook from the website, and use their forms for checkin/check out. We register with the County-$56/year.

We do everything above board, keep a schedule of fixed assets to depreciate for taxes, and have a few vendors we know we can rely on if we have a problem that needs immediate attention (e.g. plummer, a/c person). We've only had one tenant who we really didn't care for (but he did pay the bills). We've never had to deal with an eviction, but I have heard that is a difficult and lengthy process.

I wouldn't say it's the best investment, especially when it comes to college savings. We used to be in a good position--a positive cash flow and a loss on our taxes, but I've since refi'd the property and it's now a breakeven cash flow with a tax loss. Since I'm no longer working, we can write off up to a $25K loss, which is why I did the refi (cash in my pocket and a bigger tax loss. Remember if your MAGI is greater than $150K you can only write off a $3,000 net loss against your income and I believe it gets included with your other losses (e.g. investment losses).

Hopefully you've already looked into all the tax issues/implications.

[Anonymous]

We rented through Craigslist. It took a month or two but we found great tenants who pay on time and take good care of the place. We were pretty thorough in checking them out - credit report, criminal background check, landlord references.

[Anonymous]

Where is the property located that you will be renting ?
I know of a Dr who is looking for a property to rent.

[Anonymous]

I know you asked for advertising and rental advice and this isn't it, a good book is Every Landlord's Tax Deduction Guide.

I have rented twice in the DC area, once 10 years ago when I used City Paper, and the other time more recently, when everything was on Craig's List.

Think about including a clause that says to cover hardwood floors with carpet, if you want to protect them.

[Anonymous]

I have found strangers with a hefty security deposit to be easier on property than anyone else!

[Anonymous]

We just rented our home, which is clear across the country.

I suggest you find an agent who works that particular neighborhood and will do all the dirty work for you. We paid our agent 75% of the first month's rent, and this is what she did for us:

-listed our home on craigslist, ForRentByOwner.com, the local paper PLUS their own network of clients. As they are strictly a rental company, they are connected to all the big corporations who are always relocating employees to our area.

-she set up and conducted all of the showings, ran all the credit checks, made sure they paid first and last month rent PLUS a security deposit...so essentially three month's rent.

-we had the option of having her manage the property for us, but opted out. We have always been able to handle the tenants from 1500 miles away without problems, but that is because the agent did such a great job of qualifying the tenants from the beginning. I figure anyone that is able to pay us $10K in rent up front, is probably a pretty safe bet.

[Anonymous]

we rented from across the country, but we used a rental property manager. for the 10% fee, we had clear mind that the background check was done, the fees collected, late fees applied, and maintenance done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I have found strangers with a hefty security deposit to be easier on property than anyone else!

I rent by the week at the beach, and misunderstood the OP's question. I've never rented to anyone by the year, so I'm sure a security deposit would help. But for folks going to the beach for a week? Definitely rent to people you know.