Selling a house... (Columbus: sale, renters, wages)

[amorton1437]

We bought less than a year ago and it looks like in about 2 years we will be leaving Columbus. This was so not the plan we had originally. But that's life right?

I am not really sure of the market in Columbus right now-I know that our house had been on the market for awhile before we bought it but outside of that, I really have no idea what is going on. I am not sure if/when to list, if we should just rent out or what. We will be moving out of state, so I am not sure how rentals would work with that.

Any insight would be quite lovely.

[Brian_M]

2 years ought to be pretty darn close to the bottom of the market. It's not a steep decline anymore, but expect a sale price about 5% less than what you paid if the home needed nothing. More like +10% less than what you have in it is you've spent any money on updates. Why those numbers? I just went through the Exact Same headache earlier this year.

My wife and I have gone back and forth on rentals for a long time now. We both have family members who've done it, and when it's good, there's little to complain about. But it seems to be bad more often than not ~ people who rent for only 1 year, and you're looking at $5~7,000 in repairs before the home is rentable again after they move out. The courts are no help because the renters have nothing worth taking and no jobs to garnish wages from. Most are "professionals" at avoiding paying for anything. For that reason, we keep avoiding the rental market. But if this is your option, you can either try to do it all yourself (doesn't work well for absentee owners, where you're not local), or higher a management company who'll take care of it for you for either a fixed fee or a percentage of the rent. Most Realtors will also act as a management company.

As for when to List, that depends on your plan of attack. Are you willing to sell for market value, no matter what that is? Then list ~3 months prior to when you need to be gone and understand that you WILL be selling for less than you paid. If you can't deal with that reality, then list now for the price you have in your head and give yourself the time needed to adjust to the reality that you'll have to loser the price. Homes that are listed too high and have price drops do tend to sell for less in the end than properly priced homes, but you'll be so sick of the process by the end that you won't care anymore.

FWIW, my wife and I walked away from more than $50,000 on a home bought for $189k, after considering all the updates we did. Our Realtor thought we got off very easy (and we were under contract 23 days after listing, closed within 2 months of listing and able to move on with life).

Sorry, wish I could offer sunshine and puppy dogs for the outlook, but it's just not that way anywhere in the US right now. If you could hold on for about 8~10 years, the whole market ought to be on the rise and back to the level it is today.