those who own 2 or more homes.

[jennlin]

tell me about it.

why are you hoarding houses (i.e. tell me why you have more than one! got married and he had one too? too much money? wanted to upgrade/downsize?)

how long have you had multiple?

what do you do with your other home(s)? rent? vacant?

if you rent out your other home(s), do you use a property mgmt company? if so, what do they do? if not, how do you manage it?

if you are renting it out, do you do the depreciation expense on your taxes? is that difficult?

would you rent it out to a friend if you had a good basic contract?

anything else you might want to tell me?

[dana86]

I don't know if I will be a ton of help as we are new to this process and still in the process of buying a short sale so I can fill in our plan or what we have learned so far.

why are you hoarding houses (i.e. tell me why you have more than one! got married and he had one too? too much money? wanted to upgrade/downsize?). H and I have our house but are out growing it. We can't sell due to not coming out even or on top with what we owe. My dad is able to buy at this time he is and then we will take over. He will live on our property in a mil apartment to cut costs for all of us. But we all want more property so that's another reason for moving and house hoarding lol

how long have you had multiple? 0 so far still in process of short sale on house #2

what do you do with your other home(s)? rent? vacant? We will rent out our house

if you rent out your other home(s), do you use a property mgmt company? if so, what do they do? if not, how do you manage it? After picking brains of friends that rent, when the time comes we will use a management co to find a renter since they will do background checks and all that making sure to help get a decent renter. Unless for some reason we find someone we know who wants to rent it then it will be different. But once a tenant is found a contract is done up we will take over the landlord role since house #2 is only minutes away

if you are renting it out, do you do the depreciation expense on your taxes? is that difficult?

would you rent it out to a friend if you had a good basic contract? I would rent to a friend but still do a typical contract to cover any issues. It's still hard when renting to friend or family because you may be more submissive to saying things or making comments about how things are being tended to, so a contract can help put it all out there.

anything else you might want to tell me?

[niq]

I'm a special case, I effectively own my mom's condo in Atlanta now . Technically I have a security deed on it for a large amount of money, but when we sell it I'll get most of the sale proceeds. There's a $22K or so HELOC on it that will get paid back first.

Sister L thinks we're going to hold onto it and rent it out to supplement mom's income but I just have to show her the spreadsheet that shows no one in their right mind would rent it at the rate we'd need to just break even.

[InBetweenDays]

tell me about it.

why are you hoarding houses (i.e. tell me why you have more than one! got married and he had one too? too much money? wanted to upgrade/downsize?)
Ha, I like the idea of hoarding homes. DH and I bought our first home in 2000 in Ballard. We moved to our current house in February '09 and didn't need to sell financially. Figured we may as well hold on to it until the market rebounds some.

We also own a cottage in Cannon Beach with my sister and her family. Bought that in 2001 as a vacation home/investment property.

DH owns an apartment building in South Park that he bought in '05 ish? He has always wanted to get more into real estate investment and bought it with a coworker (whom he has since bought out).

We recently bought a duplex in Ballard with several other investors (friends and family).

So for us they are mostly more to diversify investments out of the stock market and allow DH to get more into real estate.

how long have you had multiple?
See above

what do you do with your other home(s)? rent? vacant?
Our Ballard house has been rented by the same family since '09. The duplex was fully rented when we bought it and remains so. The apartment building is obviously rentals.

The Cannon Beach cottage sits vacant most of the time. We "rent" it out to people really cheap and offer it up for auctions, etc. We have considered renting it more regularly but Cannon Beach has strict rental laws and it may be more hassle than its worth.

if you rent out your other home(s), do you use a property mgmt company? if so, what do they do? if not, how do you manage it?
No, DH manages them all. He has kind of a building manager/maintenance guy for the apartment building that has been his go to maintenance guy for the other rentals when issues come up. But DH manages everything on his own.

if you are renting it out, do you do the depreciation expense on your taxes? is that difficult?
Yes, we depreciate expenses. We have a tax person that handles our taxes for us.

would you rent it out to a friend if you had a good basic contract?
Depends on the friend. My gut response is no but I'd consider it if someone was in a bind.

[InBetweenDays]

Jan 7, 2013 15:35:35 GMT -5 spunbutterfly said:

That was tough, the applicants started bid-warring, which was kind of weird.

We had a similar experience with our house when we rented it in '09. We had multiple people interested in it and the family that got it offered us a full year's rent up front!

[Deleted]

Jan 7, 2013 15:27:40 GMT -5 jennlin said:

tell me about it.

why are you hoarding houses

This made me giggle

[InBetweenDays]

Jan 7, 2013 18:48:56 GMT -5 @legalbritt said:

I've said this before but I'll say it again! Those of you renting houses, you should create an LLC and put the rentals into an LLC to protect your personal assets

We have separate LLCs for each of our rental properties and are now doing one for the Cannon Beach cottage.

Sent from my SCH-I500 using proboards

[dana86]

Jan 7, 2013 18:48:56 GMT -5 @legalbritt said:

I've said this before but I'll say it again! Those of you renting houses, you should create an LLC and put the rentals into an LLC to protect your personal assets

I think I will be looking into this tomorrow. Never thought of doing it.

[carylee07]

Hokay, so the house we used to live in was actually built by H's great grandfather. H bought it from his dad and uncle a couple years before we got together. When we bought our current house, we knew that if we tried to sell the other house that we wouldn't make money off of it. It's in an older neighborhood, not ghetto or anything, but not necessarily high demand.

There are actually two houses on the property. What was supposed to be a garage, turned into a small 750sf apartment with a basement bc one of H's great aunts got prego, so they lived there. Bob started renting the back house in the 80s! So he (an 80 year old man) came with the house when H bought the property.

Ok so when we moved out, we were going to advertise it, but (this is going to be way confusing) H's BFF's girlfriend's mom was looking for a house to rent. It all ended up working out, so the mom rented for about a year. The mortgage is dirt cheap, so we are totally making money with their rent plus what Bob pays us. We don't use an outside company, H acts as the landlord and knock on wood, there have been no major maintenance issues.

That mom moved out so I was stressed about finding another renter. Well, luckily, the guy we hired to mow the lawn for that property (it's almost one acre), saw it was vacant and asked what the lawn boy's discount would be to live there. We got lucky again! So he pays a reduced rent, but he now mows the lawn for free.

When he moves out, no clue what we will do. I hope he and Bob stay forever.

[carylee07]

Oh and it's been 2 years now.

[omangie]

why are you hoarding houses (i.e. tell me why you have more than one! got married and he had one too? too much money? wanted to upgrade/downsize?)
We bought our starter home in '99 with the intent of staying several years, then using it as an investment property when we outgrew it.

how long have you had multiple?
2007

what do you do with your other home(s)? rent? vacant?
Rent

if you rent out your other home(s), do you use a property mgmt company? if so, what do they do? if not, how do you manage it?
We do not use a company, but within the next year, we will be moving OOT and renting both of them, so I hope to use one then. It is very stressful finding the right people, cleaning, fixing, etc, all happening so fast so you don't lose any rent.

if you are renting it out, do you do the depreciation expense on your taxes? is that difficult?
My tax lady does it. She just asks how much we collected in rent and if there were any months of it being empty.

would you rent it out to a friend if you had a good basic contract?
We have, twice. It's kind of a double edged sword...you feel more comfortable with who is taking care of your home, but then they both started to pay later and later and get behind in rent and take advantage because they felt they could. If it is a close friend, I wouldn't recommend it. It puts you in a position of "power" over them financially, and that will change the dynamic of your relationship

anything else you might want to tell me?
It is stressful for me, but hopefully it pays off some day. We have really been pretty fortunate so far.

[shevacc]

We only own 1 home but I managed a rental my dad owned for 7 years (in MA) so wanted to chime in. He inherited it when my grandpa died but lived far away (in NC) so I/DH did all the work. It was a duplex and we lived downstairs/rented out upstairs for 3 years then lived 15 minutes away and rented out both halves. I probably wouldn't do it again due to the stress/PITA factor but it wasn't a terrible experience either. Standard professional management fee when I looked was 1 month rent to find a tenant, 10% rent each month, plus the cost of maintenance and the repair guy's time.

I found tenants on Craigslist, 8 families or individuals in all. 3 were awesome, 4 were ok, and 1 was a royal pain even though he paid rent mostly ontime. Most either unit was ever vacant was 2 months in a row. I couldn't see giving up 1 month rent for a realtor to do a credit check for me. Most tenants stayed for 1-2 years. Have a contract and treat it like a business from the start. Be clear about your expectations and arrange to visit regularly to check on things and keep up with maintenance.

Pros: "free" money most months, most tenants don't cause problems
Cons: tenants bother you at inconvenient times to fix things. No one treats it with as much care as you would. Things break more frequently and you need the time and money to fix them quickly. It's stressful having to find new tenants. Repairs can be expensive if you're not handy. Over the years we replaced locks, screens, screen doors, broken windows, light fixtures, dishwasher, fridge, gas range, W/D, doorbell, faucet, painted, unclogged a toilet (gross), batteries and light bulbs (annoying), porch railing, hired a plumber to replace hot water heater and boiler, did spring yard cleaning, paid a lawn service, snow removal...lots of weekends spent there. Sometimes a tenant tried to fix something and made it worse...sometimes they called for every little thing.

would you rent it out to a friend if you had a good basic contract? No. I found it's like loaning money to a friend. Best tenants were vague aquaintences or friends of friends. I tried friends twice and collecting rent could get weird. Also no one took the same care of the place I would and I sometimes resented that.

Sorry so long but I wanted to share my experience.