Why homeowners rent? (Raleigh, Cary, Dunn: for sale, renter, loan)

[info2go]

Hello Everyone:

Our family is planning to relocate from PA and decided to lease a house prior to purchasing. I have been researching rentals and there are alot of nice houses out there to lease, some more expensive than others!

So my question is... why would a homeowner decide to rent their house out?

-Is it because owners are struggling trying to sell their fairly new house and potential buyers would rather purchase a brand new house?

-Are homeowners frustrated with "SLS"? (Small Lot Syndrome)

-Do you find that most rentals have some undesirable traits (neighbors, noise, airport traffic, dogs, flood areas, rodent problems,etc)?

I'm just trying to get a feel of the rental market in the North Raleigh area and what to be cautious about. Otherwise, I'm pretty impressed with the house rentals, and just wondering why the houses are not for sale.

Thanks for your help and stay warm!

[RaleighRob]

I dunno...various factors. My uncle had a house, married, moved into her house and rented out his old one instead of selling it. That's one example.

But if you scroll thru craigslist or the MLS of rentals, and this is just a hunch, but I bet the vast majority are owned by people for the purpose of renting out. "Investors" if you will. Or slumlords, even.

Mine is owned by some guy whom we've yet to ever meet...the property management claims the guy owns them as a source of income for a charity. Dunno the specifics really, I just turn in my rent check every month and hope it never raises.

[Mvn2nc]

Originally Posted by info2go

Hello Everyone:

Our family is planning to relocate from PA and decided to lease a house prior to purchasing. I have been researching rentals and there are alot of nice houses out there to lease, some more expensive than others!

So my question is... why would a homeowner decide to rent their house out?

-Is it because owners are struggling trying to sell their fairly new house and potential buyers would rather purchase a brand new house?

-Are homeowners frustrated with "SLS"? (Small Lot Syndrome)

-Do you find that most rentals have some undesirable traits (neighbors, noise, airport traffic, dogs, flood areas, rodent problems,etc)?

I'm just trying to get a feel of the rental market in the North Raleigh area and what to be cautious about. Otherwise, I'm pretty impressed with the house rentals, and just wondering why the houses are not for sale.

Thanks for your help and stay warm!

Some rentals ( including mine) was bought for investment purposes.I keep it rented, i make money on it and i have another tax write off.

[RaleighRob]

whoa.....homeowners get tax write offs...and landlords do too??

And what do we tenants (who usually make less money than homeowners or landlords) get? Zilch. Where's the justice in this country?

[Mvn2nc]

Originally Posted by RaleighRob

whoa.....homeowners get tax write offs...and landlords do too??

And what do we tenants (who usually make less money than homeowners or landlords) get? Zilch. Where's the justice in this country?

Yes, landlords do get write offs just the same as a homeowner. You get the tax deduction off the loan plus any and i mean any repairs,maintanence,services etc.
I'm not complaining but i also do feel that renters need to have some sort of write off as i have been a renter myself in the past and always felt that was not fair.

[Erin1264]

Why is it not fair? There is probably a write off just as any business can write off the cost of doing business. Having a rental is like getting income from a business. You are paying for something that you get in return (housing).

[Mvn2nc]

Originally Posted by Erin1264

Why is it not fair? There is probably a write off just as any business can write off the cost of doing business. Having a rental is like getting income from a business. You are paying for something that you get in return (housing).

What i was saying is as fas as "not being fair" is that for every family that rents it would basically be nice if they too would be able to take a write off of some sort on the amount of rent that they pay for the year.

[Desdemona123]

Originally Posted by Mvn2nc

What i was saying is as fas as "not being fair" is that for every family that rents it would basically be nice if they too would be able to take a write off of some sort on the amount of rent that they pay for the year.

Why? That is a cost of theirs....I can't write off the mortage payments themselves (just interest)...since renters don't have the interest, why do they get to write off their rent? I'd want to start writing off my whole morgage then.

[VickiR]

In this area (Raleigh, Cary), our appreciation is at least 3% per year.

I have clients that move into a larger home but choose to keep their first home as an investment property.

Vicki

[normie]

Here's a reason you may not have considered: We want to buy a house while prices are low, but wait to sell a house after the prices in our old area go back up.

Our strategy will probably be to find a house for our retirement in about 6 months, even though retirement is a few years away. (We think it's a wise time to buy our future home, even if we're not yet ready to move into it.) Then we will move half our stuff to it and rent it out on a short term basis (probably to someone who wants to rent while they look for a new home). The final step will be to put the other house on the market in a year or so when the market here starts to turn around. The house being sold will look better with half our stuff removed (because it's already in the new house).

It's a little difficult to finance, but this strategy worked well for my parents so we would like to use it, too.