Advice on renting out my condo?

[Bill Bumface]

That's exactly what I did last time. The upstairs guy is good, young guy who likes to stay in and smoke pot with rich parents to back his rent. Downstairs is getting a crazy good deal. It was cheap to start with, then she hit money problems and her rent was dropped so she could stay. Dropping her rent $50/month was a big deal to her, but allowed me to keep a good tenant who takes really good care of the place. If you go empty for 2 months trying to find a new tenant to pay the extra $50/month it takes a year and a half of the new tenant staying to make it worth while.

[Mass_nerder]

Thanks for the advice CP!

[photon]

In late, but renting it out remotely that far away pretty much requires a management company, or at the very least someone that can take care of local tasks.

Walkthroughs, giving keys, that sort of thing are impossible to do remotely of course. And it's good to do a visual inspection every so often, that helps mitigate against those cases where the tenant checks out perfectly but then go sideways.

Or someone to do the legwork if some repair needs to be done, coordinating someone to do the repair and meet them there (if the tenant isn't home).

If you have someone you trust locally that can do that kind of legwork stuff for you then it would be possible to do remotely (the money stuff gets handled by you via EMT and such), but as people have said it's lots of work.

For it being an investment, if it's not cash flow positive then I'd look long and hard at keeping it, keeping a property that's cash flow negative (it will be as repairs will need to be done eventually) for the appreciation isn't that good an idea IMO, that seems more like speculation.

[Sr. Mints]

I've been thinking about renting my condo out too, but there's a clause or stipulation in my ING mortgage that says I cannot rent my unit out (or something) which I haven't really investigated yet. Anyone heard of/dealt with that?

[Hilch]

Is it ING or CHMC with the clause for not renting it out?

[Shazam]

Judging from the work involved, I'd forgo the whole renting out idea and just burn the place down and collect the insurance money.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Judging from the work involved, I'd forgo the whole renting out idea and just burn the place down and collect the insurance money.

I'm sure all the neighbours in the condo building would appreciate that.

[Frequitude]

Good tenants are worth their weight in gold, namely the ones that fix the little stuff themselves. Hell, the seal under my toilet was leaking one day so my tenant just replaced it himself. That's not a clean job.

[Sr. Mints]

Originally Posted by Hilch

Is it ING or CHMC with the clause for not renting it out?

It is from ING.

F. OTHER CONDITIONS:

(...)

9. For the duration of the mortgage term, the property must be occupied by the owner (or one of the
owners, if applicable). To facilitate the address change, we will automatically update the residential and
mailing address on the closing date for all the applicants on this mortgage application. If either one of the
applicants does not want their address changed, please call your Fulfillment Analyst.

Again, I haven't looked into this too much yet, I just remember coming across this when I bought my condo, but didn't think it'd ever be an issue at the time.

We're only in the "thinking about it" stage at this point, but I am either going to move into my fiancee's home or she is going to move in to mine; we want to rent the unoccupied one.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I'm sure all the neighbours in the condo building would appreciate that.

Could be one of those leaky condos

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

Hell, the seal under my toilet was leaking one day so my tenant just replaced it himself. That's not a clean job.

Lucky. There is nothing like scooping someone's poo water out of the bowl so you can take the toilet of and fix a disgusting urine encrusted seal. And then right after that, if you're lucky, you get to pull a clot of their hair out of the sink and shower drains. Best day ever.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Could be one of those leaky condos

The leaking water will put out the fire

[Radio]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

This is important advice, get the inspection report SIGNED by the tenant.

Being a landlord isn't difficult, but it is hard work. When you're taking responses for your rentfaster ad, try and schedule a bunch of showing a short time apart, instead of making a unique appointment time for each person. Otherwise you'll spend your life doing showings. The most important thing you can do with your ad is take good pictures. If you can't do that, pay rentfaster the (nominal) fee to come take them.

Tenant screening is key. People lie on the application forms, your job is check the facts, call the references, and make sure you're not getting taken in by someone. Ask yourself how good a judge of character you are. Getting a good tenant is the most important part.

If you do decide to be a landlord from a distance, it would help to have someone local you could call in case of emergency to help you out. The other thing to do is be prepared to eat some extra expenses. If the toilet stops working, you can't go over and look yourself if you're not local, you just have to send a plumber and pay the bill.

That's probably still cheaper than getting a property management company though, as you could expect to pay 10-12 percent of the rent, plus a fee every time they re-lease it for a new tenant.

That's basically what we do. Schedule as many viewings in a row as we can. We have rental applications for everyone in case they are interested (downloaded from Rentfaster). We then check references for sure. Once we think we have the right tenant we do a lease agreement (downloaded from Rentfaster), then we schedule a walk through with inspection forms (downloaded from Rentfaster).

We currently have a fantastic tenant and we try to show our appreciation by sending small gifts and thank yous every so often. Personally I think that's important when you have a tenant you can trust. Hopefully it will keep her there.

Radio