Please Clarify
 

Your list of expenses that the management company takes care of just can't be right; if the company only gets 15% and they pay taxes (Florida Room tax is 9%), cleaning (I had to pay $120 per month for that), and they get and handle tenants...they must be going broke working like this. :ohdear:

Mark
We have rented our patio villa for 6 years. We are also planning on selling. I tried to send details but the post was blocked.
Give us a call and we can tell you how we handled the rentals.
Gary -913-544-3304
Jeannie- 913-634-3247

Do not use hometown property management! They are extremely overpriced, they do not pay attention to detail, and nothing but trouble with them.

I think he meant they collect the taxes and file the forms.

I use them and have had no problems, they are charging 15% on a long term unfurnished villa. They direct deposit the rental amount less 15% each month. So far so good with Hometown. Also the Villages sales agents go to them for rentals when they have clients building homes but want to be here during the process. Some people say they are not affiliated with TV but they use the TV e-mail system and use offices in TV rec center sales offices so they must be affiliated in some way.

Renting
 

We bought a patio villa. The agent went on and on about how easy it would be to rent. How we'd make money. After furnishing with all new furniture, linens, kitchen goods etc. we were all set for the money to come in. In 2 years we rented it only 3 months. the first year we used Hometown and that's who I would use. We sold it after 2 years. It wasn't worth it in the end. Be your own judge. Don't listen to the hype.

Good luck

Jane

So, you just buy a house and turn it over to a real estate agent as a rental, and you will make money. If that is correct, why doesn't the real estate agent just buy the houses and make even more money?

be careful management usually charge 30% of income

My father had I think nine rental houses at one time. From the age of 12 until I was out of high school I was the slave, bringing back grass in the yards, cleaning and painting after tenants moved out. I have owned a few rental houses, a couple four unit and one 36 unit apartment building. It is hard to make much and one needs to be very careful about choosing tenants, maybe less so in The Villages, but still necessary. If one really looks at the risks, the hours spent on maintenance, bill paying, renting and so on and all of the various costs, very little can be netted. Since I owned these back in the late 1960s through the late 1970's I had wonderful tax relief on other income from comparatively rapid depreciation no longer available. Depreciation schedules the IRS has today offer almost no relief. Indeed, the structures actually depreciate more than the tax laws allow one to deduct. These days real money can only made on the sale, so choose wisely. Remember in real estate it is location, location, location.

Some do. I knew one that owned 23 houses that she had acquired over the years she rented out.

Good advice on being careful about choosing tenants. We had one that complained about the A/C not cooling. We went over and found the doors and windows open, the A/C on and the condenser (or is it compressor?) outside was all frosted up. We asked how long the windows and doors were open, 'since they arrived'. How long has the A/C been running, 'since we arrived'. They didn't have the sense that God gave grapes. They received a lesson on running the A/C and a follow up visit twice to make sure they weren't doing it again. But there were other incidents with those tenants. Thank goodness they were there only 2 weeks.

I would not be in a rush to buy a house right now. Here is one expert's opinion of downturn coming soon in the housing market.

"The spring and summer months are traditionally the hottest home-buying season, but one housing expert predicts sales to drop as much as 40% during that time because of the coronavirus outbreak.

“Market activity will be lower in the next couple of months,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, said in a press conference. “I won’t be surprised if sales activity could be down 30% or even 40% in the next months.” "

Wait a couple of months prices will be down

Villagershomes4rent.com. The Villages is very expensive. I would buy anywhere but Fenney area, especially for golfers.