Advice On Renting Property Back In Us

[NovaBlue05]

I plan to move to LOS in a year. I have property in a reasonbly stable real estate market in the Northern Virginia (Metro Washington, DC). My thoughts are to use a property management group to keep the place rented and take care of issues as needed for a period sufficient to decide my commitment to return to it. The house is in good shape but it's 45 years old and requires routine maintenance. I would have no relatives/trusted friends to watchdog the effort so I would rely entirely on contract help to manage it. I am interested in hearing others experiences/suggestions maintaining rental property back in the States.

[Mike45]

My experience has been lousy. Property management that generates repairs so they can charge an additional fee on top of the repairs. Tenants not paying and long legal process to get rid of them. I have no idea how difficult it is to rent out in other counties but my experience has been lousy.

Actually I do know how it is done in a couple of locations I have lived in. In Korea you must pay the years rent up front. In Taiwan it's a large cash amount upfront and checks written out for the entire year in advance.

By comparison I have a lousy deal in the the US.

Good luck your going to need it.

[MrRealDeal]

You should be asking your questions locally specific to that company not asking for general stories here as they will range from good to bad and would be completely irelevant to the specifc company you would be using. Ask them for references and follow up on them. Ask local real estate companys who is the best and why , asking people here won't help you in any way at all in finding a good company to get the job done.

Using a good reputable management company will work out just fine , using a lousy one will not.

Their are certianlly numerous people doing exactly what you want to do living here and it works out just fine for most.

[NeverSure]

I don't know your state's laws, but here they are if you want to dig in. The most important part to me would be the eviction process, and time elapsed. I used to have a bunch of rentals in Oregon but it looks like in Virginia, even some counties may vary.

Virginia Landlord-Tenant Laws

The easiest way to find out would be to talk to a property management company.

Now, here's what I'm doing, FWIW. My home is paid for, but it doesn't pencil to rent it. Single family homes just don't have the ROI of apartments or even duplexes, and there's no economy of scale for things like landscaping. And yes, I'd hire a landscaper just as I would for apartments. Tenants won't take care of it, and when they move you'll have a big expense anyway getting it back into shape for renting. I can have a duplex done cheaper than I pay for my home too, because I'm on acreage with about 3/4 acre in time sprinkled landscaping. Same for painting the outside and other things. The property taxes will be less on a duplex because they are based on value.

I'm taking about 1/2 the sales price from my home and buying a duplex. That way I get some cash, and a better ROI on the duplex. I'm going to keep 1/2 empty including a 2 car garage for me for when I visit or if I really don't like living in LOS. I will also maintain my residency by some maneuvering.

I had good luck with property managers except as someone said, if they also have their own maintenance people, it's a temptation to over-maintain on your dime. I don't know what to tell you about that. I was always local and required them to call me before doing repairs so that I could go look. I didn't always go look, but I think it helped.

Around here the fee on single family buildings is 10% of rent collected, not 10% of asking price. That's their incentive to keep it full and to rent to good renters who'll pay. They get only 10% of what they actually get for you.

You have to decide if renting a house that old from afar is a good deal. I can tell you that I would lose money renting my home and again, I don't have a mortgage payment. Just the property taxes and landscape maintenance would eat 1/2 the rent. There's this point above which few will pay rent for any home. Just because your home is on a million dollars worth of land isn't much incentive to a renter. Certainly not a million dollars worth. I'm not saying mine is, just making a point.

Talk to a property management company or two. See what your market is for vacancies. Anything over about 6% vacancy as reported by your local apartment owners' association is getting iffy. Anything under that and it should rent easily. I've seen it as bad as 10% and there were deals everywhere, as in first and/or last month's rent free, etc. I've seen it at 2% which means you really can't even find a place to rent they are snatched up so fast. You need to know that number.

Good luck, keep posting if anything else comes up.

[RKASA]

It has been a long time (back in the 70's early 80's), but I knew several military members that rented out their homes they owned in that area when the took orders to another area. They planned on returning.

What they did was lease for a set time to the company for three years for a price that covered the cost of payment and escrow which is tax and insurance. That company then had to return the property in good shape at the end of lease but they had all the problems of unpaid rent, repairs etc. as they were sub letting it as a business it is all their dime not yours. One of them turned around and made an offer on the property during the lease and they sold it to them rather then take it back.

If they are not liable in some way you can be sure they won't reliable ether.

[NeverSure]

I don't know. The standard method here is for the management company to charge a percentage of rents actually collected. For that they do evictions, new rental agreements, background checks, etc. Any loss of rents to the owner is also a loss of income and a lot more work for the company. The company then has a mutual interest in finding good tenants and keeping it rented.

I never had serious problems, although despite the best due diligence, you'll always get the odd bad renter.