Are you a NOVA landlord? (Washington: sales, rent, health insurance)

[ArtyGuy]

Originally Posted by shamrock847

Our thought process and experence was pretty similar to michgc's except we found our tenants on military by owner. I agree with the comment earlier that a lot of people there want a 2 or 3 year lease since that is how long they will be in the area. They will usually also want a military clause that says they can break the lease if they get orders out of.

I'm AD military and yes, we do want the ability to rent longer. Unless we're at a school, our assignment is going to be for at least 2 years. Generally it's going to be longer. Of course there are always exceptions. Now you don't have to put a military clause in our rental agreement but we can still break a lease because of the civil service relief act. If we get assignment orders, moving us, we can legally break a lease. But fear not, we are generally told far enough in advance that we won't leave the owner high and dry. I was given orders in January for my new assignment, which began this past July. I won't lie, sometimes folks don't have much advance notice. I can tell you that every one of us wants to know as far in advance as possible that we are moving-- we don't like the short string notices. We are also concerned about living in a good area with good schools, etc.

If a military family signs a 1-yr lease, my guess is they are waiting for housing on post. In any event, ask the potential military renter if they are waiting for housing. If they are, then don't rent to them if that makes you feel uncomfortable.

To the OP--I currently rent my home here but I own a home in SC and rent it to a military family. I've rented homes in the past and have paid for rental management services. I'm not certain the 10% fee of the rent they generally charge is worth it. I'm not using anyone for my current tennants. Regular communication with the tennants is key.

[mcleanexec]

I have 7 rental properties. 4 in MD, 1 in Mclean, 2 in California. For the Northern Va one i do it myself, For the expensive ones I use a real estate agent pay them the one month, for the less expensive ones (balitimore/gaithersburg) I do it myself.

Once you get used to it, you can screen the deadbeats fairly easily. Try to rent to families if you can. They have more to lose by not paying rent.

[jillybean720]

We certainly have no problem for renting out for more than one year. I'm 99% sure the market won't recover enough in a year for us to sell! Looks like we'd currently be super lucky to sell our townhouse for $200k. We certainly paid significantly more than that when we bought it 5 years ago!

[dmv101010]

This has been super helpful as we will be renting our condo, tax-time next year.
My question to those of your who rent, did you buy another home immediently or do you rent?

[spencgr]

Originally Posted by dmv101010

This has been super helpful as we will be renting our condo, tax-time next year.
My question to those of your who rent, did you buy another home immediently or do you rent?

We bought a new home, but rent out the townhome because we, like the OP, are underwater.

FWIW, I think the management company (as long as you have a good one) is well worth the monthly fees.

[mdcrim]

I would like to add that we always host a potential tenant open-house (similar to a for sale open house). We advertise on craigslist starting the week before, have the prospective tenants email us for the exact address, then hold the house open for a couple of hours on a Sunday. We bake cookies and have a sign in sheet for interested parties. We put out a couple of "open house" signs with arrows pointing toward the property. We also have copies of the rental application and a sample lease. We have used this method successfully many times over the past several years. One of our properties is in Baltimore and it prevents numerous trips to show the property individually. And it gives the prospective tenants a sense of urgency, in case there are others interested. We do this about 6-8 weeks before the property is due to turn over (with our current tenants approval, of course).

[MrsHunny]

Interesting! My husband is military, and we're looking at townhouses to rent in Lake Ridge. What are you expecting to charge for rent? Which neighborhood is the house located in? Is it 3+ bedrooms? Basement or Rec. Room? We should chat!

[Emma2]

Originally Posted by mdcrim

We get tenants on craigslist. Manage our own properties. Just make sure you call the references, the employer and do a credit check. Instead if spending 8% on a management company, we have home warranties on all of our properties in case there are maintenance issues. That's worked great because we don't have to fumble around looking for plumbers, electricians, etc. The warranty companies have contractors they use.

Hi, we have just rented out a house as well and I would greatly appreciate if you would share the name of the home warranty company you use. I have been researching them and it's been a bit overwhelming with a lot of conflicting reviews. Our house is 15 years old so I am nervous appliances might start having problems and it would be nice to only have to make one phone call and not hunt down contractors. Thank you for your help!

[Emma2]

Originally Posted by jillybean720

Thank s so much for the responses so far - great inputs!

I don't think we'll go the route of property management for the monthly fee simply because, quite frankly, what we can rent out the townhouse for will still not cover our monthly mortgage + escrow payment, so we're still going to be shelling out about $5-600 each month even when we do have a tenant. I don't want someone else taking another cut!

That said, I do think we might still use a realtor to find a tenant. My husband and I both work full time, my husband takes classes at NVCC (which means homework even on non-class nights), and we have a 5-month-old who takes up any "spare" time we do have (plus fun things in our new house like how we just had to unexpectedly have our water heater replaced...). I agree with points here that I would probably be a better judge for screening than a realtor who doesn't own the property and who will only do things "by the book" as opposed to following their gut, so I really wish I had the time to do the screening myself, but I just don't think it's feasible. The beauty of Lake Ridge is that it's reasonable commuting distance to both Ft. Belvoir and Quantico (one of the neighbors is actually military), so I think we'll start by posting on the military sites (not that military automatically means good tenant, but I feel it's a lower likelihood of a disrespectful tenant). I do already have a sample contract that a realtor sent me, but I do think I need to do some additional researh on landlord requirements in PWC.


This is exactly what one realtor suggested to us. I actually just got a recommendation for a home warranty company from a friend at work who likes hers.

Good luck to you! Would you be so kind as to share the name of the home warranty company. We just rented out our 15 year old house, so I feel like it is a matter of time before maintenance issues arise and would like to be able to make one phone call to the home warranty company and have it handled. I would appreciate a recommendation as it is hard to tell which one would be best. Thank you.

[slim04]

Originally Posted by Emma2

Good luck to you! Would you be so kind as to share the name of the home warranty company. We just rented out our 15 year old house, so I feel like it is a matter of time before maintenance issues arise and would like to be able to make one phone call to the home warranty company and have it handled. I would appreciate a recommendation as it is hard to tell which one would be best. Thank you.

I'm not sure if home warranties are going to save you a lot of time, but they certainly probably won't save you any money.

If you are a landlord, your tenant still has to call you to complain, you then have to make a claim with the warranty company, coordinate a time when a repair service can come out, coordinate with your tenant, and then have to pay the deductible and the cost if repair isn't covered (or deal with the claims dispute).

How exactly is that a time saver? You can easily just subscribe to Angie's List or the Washington Checkbook to find out the top rated repair services, only a few will have high scores with hundreds of comments or raters (i.e. Buhl Electric).

Also, I'd subscribe to something like Consumer Reports, because if you have older equipment, it just might be easier to buy and replace it with a reliable best buy model than do a lot of repairs every few years. My fridge went out a couple years ago and the repair cost was something like $400 because of a compressor problem. The repairman told us our model was old and it would be cheaper and more energy efficient just to buy a basic refrigerator model at Costco.

Warranty companies don't usually save you money because they build extremely large profit margins in their pricing and have to pay very high marketing costs and sales commissions to sell those policies. Usually 30 cent of every dollar you spend in a warranty goes for marketing. So in the end, you'll pay more over time. Warranties on old furnances cost a fortune, so it is usually much cheaper to pay for yearly maintenance for them.