Should we have tried to keep our old home as a rental?

[Anonymous]

Not a lucrative proposition at all. Would only keep a house if you plan on living in it again. Otherwise, you are much better off investing in a REIT or anywhere else. One year was such a money sinkhole that it wiped out all of the prior years’ tiny profits.

Plus this doesn’t even include the tenants who think lease terms are optional. They create nightmare situations.

Any income is not passive. It is a loser of an investment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Renting as a private landlord is not lucrative - and if your tenant decides not to pay, it takes months and months to get them out with not much success to recoup the lost rent. Just went through this in MoCo.

I am considering renting my house in MoCo. Do you have any advice how to avoid the kind of situations that you found yourself in?

No. Single woman with great job and references- until she decided to find herself and become an artist and to quit her job.

Thanks to new Maryland law, if you sue for less than 10k, you cannot compel the defendant to disclose their new address, new employer or bank info or any assets.

[Anonymous]

Let’s say someone doesn’t pay rent; you immediately take them asap to court where the judge finds for you:either they pay or move out; they don’t pay, you get an eviction order; the sheriff gives you a date 3 months away; 3 more months no rent; at eviction date you need to hire enough mover and a truck to empty the place in one hour; the tenant pays the rent for which you had the eviction order, ie 3 months earlier; the clock is reset; this goes on 3 times before the tenant may finally leave, hopefully without too much damage to the property.

[Anonymous]

Dogs do immeasurable damage to landscaping and the house. People do 10x that ….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Renting as a private landlord is not lucrative - and if your tenant decides not to pay, it takes months and months to get them out with not much success to recoup the lost rent. Just went through this in MoCo.

I am considering renting my house in MoCo. Do you have any advice how to avoid the kind of situations that you found yourself in?

Get a prop mgmt company.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What was your mortgage payments and what could you tent it for?

What is a management company charging or you doing this on your own?

If this was meant for the landlord with military tenants the mortgage/taxes/insurance is $3k per month and rental income is $4k. No management company.

Of course, all possible expenses are deducted from rental income on Schedule E and I plan to leave property to my son upon my demise (avoiding depreciation recapture and capital gains).

Landlord life not for everyone but I live close to the rental making maintenance easier. We also consider this property as part of a well-rounded financial and estate planning strategy.