From:Rent It Network
Renting your home out versus selling it. We wanted to give you a few tips and things to consider if you’re in a situation where you have to make a decision quickly about whether to try and sell your home or rent it out.
First, ask yourself if
you can afford to sell. We’re in a market now where property values have come
down in the last few years. While those property values are staring to improve,
owners are often finding they owe more than their homes are worth. So you have
to understand that if you sell, you might be losing money. Are you willing to
lose that money and come to the closing table with the funds necessary to pay
off your mortgage?
Short sales are an
option, and we’ll talk about short sales more in depth in another blog. When
you do a short sale, you try to sell your home and work things out with your
lender to ensure they will accept less than what you owe for the house. There
are lots of things to consider when you do a short sale. It could affect your
credit and your lender could try to get the additional money owed from you. You
have to think it through carefully because it can be difficult, no matter what
your situation is.
Another thing to
consider is your long term goals. Whether you sell or rent your property out
will depend on whether this is the home you are leaving in order to relocate
out of the area, whether you plan to come back in the future, or if it’s always
been an investment property. If you like the house or it happens to be in an
area you would like to come back to, you might want to avoid selling it and
instead rent it out. If this has been an investment property, you can probably
keep making money on your investment if you rent it instead of selling it. Look
at the property from a long term perspective and see what kind of cash flow you
can earn from it.
Ideally, when you are
making this decision, you’ll look at the money. Talk to someone who can tell
you what properties similar to yours are renting for. Consider the cost of
ownership and how much you’ll need to spend on maintenance and repairs. There
are also a lot of potential tax advantages if you hang onto that property and
put it on the rental market. We encourage you to look at the big picture and
understand the benefits of renting versus selling.
Rent vs Sell your
Tampa Home Things to Consider: Real
estate over the long term has been a historically good investment. We know the
market is improving, so plan what you do now carefully. If you have any
questions or you’d like more information, please contact us at Rent it Network.
