Top 5 Tips to Rent Out Your Home
With home affordability increasing and interest rates at all time lows, many Tri-Valley residents are considering the possibility of renting out their current homes, so they can buy another primary residence at an attractive price. Meanwhile, people are looking to rent in safe neighborhoods with great schools at an affordable price. Many experts anticipate that the number of renters will increase nationally by 10% over the next year or so.
If you are ready to become a landlord, here are the top five tips to consider when renting out your home:
- Check with Your Accountant. Many landlords accumulate losses on their rentals once all expenses, including depreciation, are taken into account. While expenses related to a rental are deductible from income, certain restrictions do apply. Make sure you work with someone well versed in the latest tax laws to see if you qualify for those deductions.
- Set A Competitive Price. Check out websites like Craiglist.org or Rentometer.com to gauge what other comparable properties are charging for rent.
- Screen Potential Tenants Carefully. Do everything you can legally to ensure that you select reputable tenants who will pay rent on time and treat your property with care. Ask specific questions to assess how your property will be used, run credit checks on all applicants, and be upfront with your expectations. Do not forget to obtain character references as well. Be wary of applicants who cannot get at least a few personal recommendations.
- Treat Your Rental Property Like a Business. Make sure to maintain detailed records, keep all the receipts, and file taxes on time just as you would with any other business. Treat all renters and potential renters fairly and professionally. Obtain landlord insurance to protect appliances and other structural features of your home.
- Make Tenants Feel Special. Help your new tenants feel at home by doing something special like providing a potted plant or service that will make them want to stay for awhile.
Being a landlord can become a second job. California is a tenant-friendly state in which problematic tenants are difficult to evict. If you cannot devote sufficient time to finding the right tenant or to deal with the day-to-day maintenance of your investment, you may want to consider hiring a property manager like Anthony Sidigh of East Bay Estates to handle all those details for a nominal monthly fee.
4:03 PM on August 28th, 2010
This is probably an inapproriate article since it is the renters who are the beginning of Dublin’s downfall, which will become very apparent over the next decade. Having lived in Castro Valley during the 80s and 90s, I know what the oversupply of “affordable rental housing” can ultimately do to a community that was once considered affluent.
We do not want to be a City of renters. Rather, if we envy the high priced neigborhoods and school systems of both Pleasanton and San Ramon, we should stop becoming the Section 8 housing market of the Tri Valley. The values needed to save thirty-percent for a downpayment on a home lends itself to a community of responsible individuals.
7:13 PM on August 28th, 2010
To the first Anonymous poster: You probably not aware of this, but renting is a choice, and most of the time renters pay more in rent than a mortgage would cost, so your general comment of renters bringing the city to “city of renters” is pretty derogatory.
To add to this, if there were no renters in this economy, the city would become more like Sacramento or Stockton, where foreclosures are over 80% making whole neighborhoods ghost towns full of looting and garbage, how would you feel about your city then?
4:45 PM on August 28th, 2010
This is not the 80s and 90s. It’s a different time now. Very affluent people are either getting foreclosed on or choosing to walk away. Those same affluent people are renting and saving more money.
10:35 PM on August 28th, 2010
I agree that some people are opting to walk away. It makes financial sense because it will be years before they recover what they invested. Some of these people are first buying another property at a deep discount and then letting the home they are currently occupying go into foreclosure. Others are renting and saving and waiting for their FICO scores to go back up before buying again. Some may feel this is wrong, but in the end, you have to do what is best for you.
3:04 AM on August 29th, 2010
Husband has a doctorate, I have an MA, child in GATE, sorry we’re renters bringing Dublin down.
11:08 AM on August 30th, 2010
I hate articles that serve no purpose but to provide a plug.
9:16 AM on August 31st, 2010
right, we want articles that bring down dublin, make dublin a laughing stock and sink the value of our properties lower and lower. that is what this blog is all about.
9:34 AM on August 31st, 2010
Yes, wait until a renter moves next to you and inside of 6 months the property looks like shit.
6:10 PM on September 6th, 2010
Renters are also taxing our infrastructure – especially, our schools, which may explains why the East Dublin schools are still inferior to those in Pleasanton and San Ramon! Many of these renters are packing extended family members or packing in three generations into single family homes, which makes the rental option very affordable.
Since the renters have no ownership interest in the property and since the owners are more than likely upside down on their investment, there is very little TLC that goes into these homes, which is bad for all Dublin homeowners. I believe that the first post, although un-PC, is very very accurate.
Nevertheless, the City continues to promote projects ala the Oakland Fruitvale Transit Village. Antioch and Dublin may soon become sister cities.
5:28 AM on September 19th, 2010
I’ve heard of landlords giving out ordering a trust assurance showing that he/she is the real owner and that the that the property is not in foreclosure. There are a number of sites out there. I used http://www.landlordscreener.com I was pretty straightforward.