Information from those who rent their homes
 

Hi there, we are looking to purchase a home and then rent it part of the year. I’ve been researching, and I’m hoping some would share here or privately if they feel the market is over saturated with rentals? Is it a profitable thing or do you just break even? Is there a certain area that is better for rentals? Thanks so much for any insight!

In normal times, you really just break even. If you are going to move in a few years, it is an effective strategy to beat inflation. If you are not going to live here, you make money when you sell. Maybe 5-6% a year. For some reason, everyone thought for the last year they could get rich, so they bought up a lot of property and are now renting them out. High season is still tight, but the rest of the year has seen less and less activity. I have 2 rentals, but I bought at much lower prices and mainly as an inflation hedge. How you make much money not with higher prices and higher interest rates is beyond me.

If you have been researching, do you have any experience being a slumlord?

What are you assuming for an occupancy rate?
What target market renters are you expecting?
Are you managing the property or are you having a PM perform that duty?
What high season low season rates are you expecting?
What are your annual expenses to cover?
Furnished or unfurnished?
annual lease or IDIQ? individual dates individual quotes?
Have you even searched your answers on here? of which there are many answers to your questions. .

as a long time corporate financial modeler amongst other job skills, and a TV slumlord, my intuition says that you don't have any experience with the research part

or maybe I am wrong, but can you answer any of the above questions?

9 more working days until former corporate finance guy

Even if you break even do you really want strangers living in your house? Are you prepared to have a dog running around chewing on things and scratching your floors? If the tenants say it is a service animal, you have no choice. You can't even charge a pet fee. Are you prepared to manage the house from out-of-town? If something breaks, contractors will rip you off. One bad tenant can cost you thousands of dollars in damage repair. If you want to be a profitable landlord, buy a really old, cheap house or houses and rent them on a full time basis. Unless you really need the money, renting a house that you also want to live in is not worth it.

If you are willing to rent to dog owners and include a decent golf cart as part of the rental you will have a long line of people begging you to rent your place. Otherwise rentals are a dime a dozen, especially in the non-winter months.

A dog owner can just tell you it is a service animal and you cannot refuse to rent to them or charge an extra fee. They don't even need to tell you in advance. That is the Federal ADA law.

As someone who has watched the rental market for some time, I can say its a very interesting market. There are really two narratives, one is that renters will pay whatever is asked and the housing inventory is way below the rental market demand. The second one is everyone on the planet has their home up for rent and the market is beginning to catch up. Currently on one web site alone there are 38 homes for rent for the the prime winter months of Jan to April. IMHO the day of getting 6 to 10K per month for a 3/2 are long gone, unless you get a foreigner who doesn't understand the market.

Your response was clearly meant to be snarky but I'm still curious why you label it "being a slumlord".

If you want to lock in your retirement house at 2023 prices, to use ina few years, renting is great.

More than likely, you’ll meet your cash flow.

With tax depreciation and writing off the expenses, you wont pay taxes on the income, most likely generating a loss carry forward, to use when you sell, to defer capital gains.

We rented our home furnished for the 3 years that we still lived and worked in TN. We bought at a reasonable price and furnished it with excess from our home and good items bought second hand. It was available year-round but usually was only rented 4 or 5 months out of the year; the high season.

We did use a realtor/manager since we were not on site. The first one was terrible and we fired them after 8 months. The second was much better.

Bottom line is we paid for the mortgage, utilities, amenity fee, and all the related expenses (including the furniture we bought) from the fees collected during those 4 or 5 months it was rented. We used the home for 2 or 3 weeks at a time when it was not rented. We did not have damage or any significant issues during those years. We probably were lucky in that respect.

We took it off the rental market, sold most the furniture in the house, and moved in full time when I retired.

How remarkable! Someone posted the EXACT SAME QUESTION - same words even - on one of the Villages Facebook pages! Around 4 months ago. There were dozens of responses too.

The general response was: don't do it, UNLESS you don't care about your neighbors or the community in which you have chosen to buy the property. In which case, do whatever you want.

Actually - with regards to renting someone else's property, the landlord CAN ask for documentation proving that the animal is a performing a service for a disabled person. That is one of the few exceptions to the rule.

Here's the Sunshine law about emotional support animals, specifically:

Statutes & Constitution
:View Statutes
:

Online Sunshine.

As I understand it, you can self train your own service animal. So, you can create your own documentation. As a landlord, if your tenant shows up with a dog that they didn't tell you about, you really don't have any option but to let the dog stay in your house, or risk being sued.

But you (the tenant) have to have proof that you (the tenant) are disabled and in need of a service animal. No, there is no official documentation for the animal. But there is official documentation to prove that yes, a disabled person really is renting and occupying this rental property.

If YOU are not disabled, then YOU don't need a service animal and therefore they can refuse to allow the animal to live in the unit.

if that's how you want to interpret it, that's your prerogative.

mostly hyperbole, maybe a bit malapropism, definitely tropes. . not to be taken literally or personally unless the boot fits

and since I own a rental in TV, that makes me a slumlord as well.