Renting a house (suburbs) (Detroit, Birmingham: bank owned, for sale by owner, real estate)

[hemmie]

Have any of you heard how willing those who are unable to sell their houses are to renting them out instead? When I began looking, there just didn't seem to be much available (online at least) as rentals. We haven't decided yet whether we will rent or buy but are inclined towards renting in either Birmingham or perhaps Grosse Pointe (but probably B'ham).

Ideally, we'd find people who do not still have huge mortgages they need to cover; rather, the best situation would be a mutually-agreeable rent that would be both a good deal for us (comparable to the kind of mortgage we could get "in these economic times") and also cover the monthly payments for them.

Do situations like this exist in abundance? Or just if I look hard enough?

Thanks.

[tabbcat]

They're definitely out there. We're renting out our house in Michigan (currently we're in North Carolina) because we can't sell it. Although I'm not sure how you'll do with rental prices. We're renting it for $300 more than our mortgage. It seems that because people can't get mortgages, the rental market is booming. And that was the low end of what our property management company said we could get for it (but honestly, yeah, we don't want to rape someone, only pay our mortgage and property mgmt fee).

I'd assume that as more people leave to follow/find jobs, the rental pool will only become larger and the prices will go down (since they won't be able to sell).

[Coldjensens]

The problem with just renting for enough to cover the mortgage is that you have nothing for maintenance, time when the house sits empty between tenants, reparing damage to the house, changing locks, replacing carpeting, painting, hireing an attorey to get rid of a bad tenant, etc. You need to charge considerbly more than your mortgage if you want to break even.

For this reason, a lot empty houses in some areas are not being rented. The owner cannot get enough to cover the mortgage after expenses, so there is no point. If the house is going to end up in foreclosure anyway, then why go through the hassle of renting it out?

[hemmie]

Thanks, tabbcat.

Coldjensens... I guess what I meant is, what we consider to be "reasonable" rent is no more than what we would be paying for a mortgage payment if we were to buy in this market. Unfortunately for people who bought 2-7? years ago, that is likely to be much lower than what their current mortgage payment is, unless they bought MANY years ago.

Our ideal situation would be to find someone who is desperate to sell whose mortgage payment is relatively low, who would just be willing to rent it out to us for an amount to cover their mortgage payment & maybe maintenance. I am certainly not out to screw anyone over, but the power is not exactly on the seller or landlords' side here, so they'll "need to charge" what the market will bear. We are certainly willing to consider "lease to own" options.

We are landlords ourselves, and you don't charge people what you need. You charge what you can get. You try to avoid foreclosure - I assume - because foreclosure is a very bad thing to have on your record and something to avoid if at all possible. Am I missing something?!?

[tabbcat]

You'll definitely be able to find some people in that situation, hemmie. I'm dreading the day it comes down to that for us, because right now, we're lucky to not be losing any money on the deal If you figure a 10% property management fee on top of the mortgage payment, that should be a good average rental price and it's one that I wouldn't mind taking. I just happen to be slightly on the winning end of things (and honestly, my house rented at that price within 1 week. If I had have waited it out, I could have done better). Because it rented so fast, I'd be willing to bet that there weren't a lot of rentals out there at the time. Then again, as the banks handle their foreclosure messes, they might start renting out their bank owned properties, and I could see that driving rental prices back down to a reasonable rate.

Good luck

[daddythreepointoh]

Originally Posted by hemmie

Thanks, tabbcat.

Coldjensens... I guess what I meant is, what we consider to be "reasonable" rent is no more than what we would be paying for a mortgage payment if we were to buy in this market. Unfortunately for people who bought 2-7? years ago, that is likely to be much lower than what their current mortgage payment is, unless they bought MANY years ago.

Our ideal situation would be to find someone who is desperate to sell whose mortgage payment is relatively low, who would just be willing to rent it out to us for an amount to cover their mortgage payment & maybe maintenance. I am certainly not out to screw anyone over, but the power is not exactly on the seller or landlords' side here, so they'll "need to charge" what the market will bear. We are certainly willing to consider "lease to own" options.

We are landlords ourselves, and you don't charge people what you need. You charge what you can get. You try to avoid foreclosure - I assume - because foreclosure is a very bad thing to have on your record and something to avoid if at all possible. Am I missing something?!?

Hey there...I myself just moved here from California in 2006. I would say that between GP and Birmingham, I would go with B'ham. GP is just as nice but more on the edge of the metro area...not in the middle of things like B. Then again GP is right by the lake and close to Windsor and downtown Detroit...so depends on what you want.

Regarding this particular post, I would say definitely go through a real estate agent for finding rentals and leases. They'll have access to all that sort of behind-the-scenes info that you're looking for that isn't easily available to the public.

[ImaMichigander]

Our home in Brownstown was built in 2005. We have all the bells and whistles and it is in pristine condition. We are 3000 square feet with a walk-out. All of the stainless appliances, including the 48 bottle wine refridgerator stay.

We moved out July and the house was for sale by owner from April to July and then a realtor was signed the week we left.

We agreed to a rent with option to buy with non-refundable option payments at established intervals. The renters are paying $1300 a month less than our mortgage, but they are doing all repairs and maintenace, with our approval. This seemed like the best we were going to be able to get. We should lose about $115,000 on it when we sell it in 3 years.

[zthatzmanz28]

Our house is going on the rental market..land contract market--take over our payment market--you can have it market---call us--pm us--email us--ANYTHING---PLEASE