[Marmaduke]

Originally Posted by Marmaduke

Well, I can tell you that I have no interest in renting after watching the hassles that our neighbors are going through.

They have the Mgt company and barely get rentals, that's the first thing. Very nice houses and Location.

They found out the hard way that they can't afford both houses, an extremely costly rental mgt company and 1 day tenants. They are at their wits end.
I think it's the Management Companies, (who shall both remain Nameless!!) but,in both cases, we're right here and watching the house sit vacant.... for months and the owners bedding the revenue.

Not a position I'd want to be in while living far away.

To clarify, they are taking what they can get, 1 and 2 day rentals. They want, need long term. They NEED the revenue, and are both ready to sell... in a horrible market for sellers.

[sklmarm55]

I've been in this situation as well. My brother used three different management companies here in TV. The bad stories you are hearing about are true. When we rented I did it all myself. I also take care of the maintenance as well which is usually minor. I can help you with more specifics but difficult to do on this website as I don't see a way to send you a private message. Maybe others reading your post can help me contact you directly.

Originally Posted by celticsj

Hello, my wife and I are closing on a house in July. We are both teachers and have signed teaching contracts for this upcoming year, so we cannot move to TV until next summer. We hope to rent out our property until we can move here permanently and need help doing this. Is it better to hire a property management company or list it ourselves and then hire services to clean and take care of lawn care for us? Any suggestions or recommendations are greatly appreciated! Thanks!!

[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by thelegges

Have to ask those who are so Negative about buying prior to retirement, did you go this route and have financial failure?

We bought multiple homes in TV and rented long term, before we retired with none of the issues posters are saying not to buy/rent before retirement.

I would like to see Posters give there actual experience of gloom and doom from renting. Opinions are nice, but give zero value for OPs questions.

I know there are multiple posters who have given positive help on TV rentals. But rarely such negative comments.

I try to not be negative when posting, unless it is warranted. I have been a landlord and I have done financial planning. If you depend on a management company to do most or all of the work, it is very difficult to make a profit. Most landlords, who make money, do it because the property increases in value beyond normal inflation, not from collecting rent. Also, some landlords do not know how to do the math, and they only think they are making money because they may have a positive cash flow. But it doesn't work that way. If you can make a 5 percent return with a bond investment and a 5 percent return by being a landlord, you should not be a landlord. Another mistake new landlords make is that they assume the property will be rented 100 percent of the time and the tenants will be good people who will always pay the rent and take good care of the property. Personally, I think that buying a house in The Villages a few years prior to retirement and renting it out is a bad idea, especially if you are not an experienced landlord. The developer is still building new houses and there will be a stable supply and demand for houses for many more years.

[fflmaster]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

I try to not be negative when posting, unless it is warranted. I have been a landlord and I have done financial planning. If you depend on a management company to do most or all of the work, it is very difficult to make a profit. Most landlords, who make money, do it because the property increases in value beyond normal inflation, not from collecting rent. Also, some landlords do not know how to do the math, and they only think they are making money because they may have a positive cash flow. But it doesn't work that way. If you can make a 5 percent return with a bond investment and a 5 percent return by being a landlord, you should not be a landlord. Another mistake new landlords make is that they assume the property will be rented 100 percent of the time and the tenants will be good people who will always pay the rent and take good care of the property. Personally, I think that buying a house in The Villages a few years prior to retirement and renting it out is a bad idea, especially if you are not an experienced landlord. The developer is still building new houses and there will be a stable supply and demand for houses for many more years.

Just thinking this thru

If I was making the same net via rental on a house that is virtually guaranteed to increase over enough time and leaving my money in the bond, I would take the property every day of the year.

Second part, the villages may be building new properties for the next 20 years. But, will they be exactly where someone may want to be? Or will they be in the correct price range? What if the housing starts to increase? I know you don’t think it will. You could be right or we could see a jump in prices 2027/28. We only know what pricing is today. I know in my area home pricing continues to increase in value year after year. Even in today’s market.

[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by fflmaster

Just thinking this thru

If I was making the same net via rental on a house that is virtually guaranteed to increase over enough time and leaving my money in the bond, I would take the property every day of the year.

Second part, the villages may be building new properties for the next 20 years. But, will they be exactly where someone may want to be? Or will they be in the correct price range? What if the housing starts to increase? I know you don’t think it will. You could be right or we could see a jump in prices 2027/28. We only know what pricing is today. I know in my area home pricing continues to increase in value year after year. Even in today’s market.

Maybe I didn't make it clear that my example of a 5 percent return included selling both the bond and the rental house at the end of a specified time period and then calculating the total return on both investments. If you only make 5 percent per year on the rental house, all of your work effort and risk was wasted. But some people will consider the rental house to be a success.

[CoachKandSportsguy]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

Maybe I didn't make it clear that my example of a 5 percent return included selling both the bond and the rental house at the end of a specified time period and then calculating the total return on both investments. If you only make 5 percent per year on the rental house, all of your work effort and risk was wasted. But some people will consider the rental house to be a success.

The key to making more than general inflation is to increase price 1-2% higher than inflation, and the expenses go up at the rate of inflation. . . that builds economic value. .

BUT when your rent is about 10% higher than competing rents in several years, tenants will revolt. .

The other way to look at the decision value is with a discounted cash flow analysis, and see if the gain on the sale of the house after 5% per year exceeds your cost of capital, which is a dependent formula. RE guys shorten this calc and call it cap rate, which is the purchase cost per square foot. If too high, won't make money, if too low, great as long as you know why the caprate is so low. . (the cap assumes alot of long term cost and income assumptions though)

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

It looks to me like some posters are responding to an unasked question. "I want to profit from renting my property out for the first year after buying it. Please advise."

That isn't what the OP was asking, at all, even a little bit. The actual question is: "We don't take occupancy until next year, so we want to rent it out for the first year. Please advise."

They want expenses covered by someone else for the first year, while they're not living in it. They didn't even mention the word "profit" in their OP. They don't need to worry about profiting, this isn't an investment property. It will be their retirement home - next year. Between now and then, they'd like to see it occupied, and recoup some of the expense of buying the thing.

[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

It looks to me like some posters are responding to an unasked question. "I want to profit from renting my property out for the first year after buying it. Please advise."

That isn't what the OP was asking, at all, even a little bit. The actual question is: "We don't take occupancy until next year, so we want to rent it out for the first year. Please advise."

They want expenses covered by someone else for the first year, while they're not living in it. They didn't even mention the word "profit" in their OP. They don't need to worry about profiting, this isn't an investment property. It will be their retirement home - next year. Between now and then, they'd like to see it occupied, and recoup some of the expense of buying the thing.

I agree, but my initial advice was to not rent out the property at all. If they had not already purchased the house, I would have recommended that they wait until they are ready to retire to buy.

[johnblackwell]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

I think it will be difficult to find a good tenant who wants to rent an unfurnished house and then move out in a year.

We were fairly sure we wanted to retire here, but TV is so large we were concerned we would find ourselves irritatingly far from the places we went to most frequently. Renting, we found that the rec centers we visited most frequently were Miona and Seabreeze, so that's where we bought.
We could have rented furnished or unfurnished, but our landlords had furnished it, so we put our stuff in storage for a year. We had previously lived in a big house, so we also deliberately rented a somewhat smaller house than we expected to buy, just to see where we needed more space.
This worked really well for us, so it would not surprise me to find others planning to do the same. Perhaps someone reading this has friends considering moving here and would put them in touch with you.

[BrianL99]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

The other way to look at the decision value is with a discounted cash flow analysis, and see if the gain on the sale of the house after 5% per year exceeds your cost of capital, which is a dependent formula. RE guys shorten this calc and call it cap rate, which is the purchase cost per square foot. If too high, won't make money, if too low, great as long as you know why the caprate is so low. . (the cap assumes alot of long term cost and income assumptions though)

People on TOTV and in The Villages in general, seem intent on considering The Villages market (both sales & rentals) as a "one of a kind market".

It is not. It is a real estate market that's no different than any place else. It's driven by supply & demand. It's a market that can be somewhat skewed by the presence of "the Developer", but TV is now big enough that the Developer's influence is increasingly less defining.

We're in a declining real estate market. Sales are slow, prices are softening and the exact same thing applies to the rental market. The rental market and the sales market, seldom operate independently or contrary to one another.

Right now, a CAP rate of 7%-%8 isn't bad for an investor ... 5%-6% is good for an amateur.

Right now, I don't see how buying and renting a new home in TV gets you more than about 2%-3% max ... more likely, it's a loss.

As you point out, you can look at rentals differently if "profit" isn't your goal and one is only looking at cash flow balance.

As in every market, things change, but right now doesn't seem like an opportune time to be buying new in TV and thinking when you retire in 10 years, you're going to have a "free retirement home" that'a appreciated 200%.

[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by BrianL99

People on TOTV and in The Villages in general, seem intent on considering The Villages market (both sales & rentals) as a "one of a kind market".

It is not. It is a real estate market that's no different than any place else. It's driven by supply & demand. It's a market that can be somewhat skewed by the presence of "the Developer", but TV is now big enough that the Developer's influence is increasingly less defining.

We're in a declining real estate market. Sales are slow, prices are softening and the exact same thing applies to the rental market. The rental market and the sales market, seldom operate independently or contrary to one another.

Right now, a CAP rate of 7%-%8 isn't bad for an investor ... 5%-6% is good for an amateur.

Right now, I don't see how buying and renting a new home in TV gets you more than about 2%-3% max ... more likely, it's a loss.

As you point out, you can look at rentals differently if "profit" isn't your goal and one is only looking at cash flow balance.

As in every market, things change, but right now doesn't seem like an opportune time to be buying new in TV and thinking when you retire in 10 years, you're going to have a "free retirement home" that'a appreciated 200%.

I would take issue with your second paragraph that the developer's influence is becoming less defining. Currently, The Villages sells about 3,000 new houses per year as compared to the resale market of about 800. And, the developer is large enough that they can control the supply and pricing of houses in The Villages. I would not call The Villages a one-of-a-kind market, but the availability of new houses constructed by a large developer is somewhat unique when compared with other housing markets. I would not refer to it as being no different than any place else.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

I agree, but my initial advice was to not rent out the property at all. If they had not already purchased the house, I would have recommended that they wait until they are ready to retire to buy.

I look at it from a resident's point of view, the perspective of that new buyer's next door neighbor who lives here all year 'round. What would I like to see happen to the house next door, for the next year?

I'd like to see it legally occupied by someone or a couple someones who respect the property and respect the neighborhood. Barring that, I'd like the neighbor to give me permission to keep my car parked in their carport when I'm not driving it, since right now it bakes in the sun. Plus, having a vehicle on the property gives the impression that the property is occupied. That makes it safer, and less likely to be broken in to, squatted, or otherwise abused.

[darkim]

We have a rental unit with **** and a 28-day minimum for peak season (Jan - Apr). These always rent a minimum of 12-14 months in advance, but we’ve had late cancellations and thought we might lose that month, but I believe if you list it before September…there’s a really good chance you’ll have it booked within a few weeks. Our rental is in The Village of Pinellas which is a prime rental location

[CarolY]

Originally Posted by celticsj

Hello, my wife and I are closing on a house in July. We are both teachers and have signed teaching contracts for this upcoming year, so we cannot move to TV until next summer. We hope to rent out our property until we can move here permanently and need help doing this. Is it better to hire a property management company or list it ourselves and then hire services to clean and take care of lawn care for us? Any suggestions or recommendations are greatly appreciated! Thanks!!

I have a house that I have rented yearly unfurnished since 2015. There are a lot of people looking for one year unfurnished to take time to assess the community they want to live in. I advertise on villagers homes for rent. Com and manage it myself. Don’t listen to the naysayers. There are a lot of people looking for a one year rental. I would not rent seasonal. It is a lot of hassle and you need to furnish it.

[Normal]

Renting your home out may not win you the social popularity award from your permanent neighborhood ilk.