Renting the house out and tackling “the Elephant in the room”!
They say” oh yeah, it’s so easy, you make so much money but all the guests are terrible and they will ruin your house, burn your BBQ, party all night and dogs will pee all over your carpets. How can you let strange people into your house??? There are so many rentals around that it’s not worth of the work. Your neighbors will hate you because there will be someone else around” etc. etc.
Nice’eh??
We have all heard the same stories with different accents!
So of course as it was not going to be easy… we decided to do it so we can take off to travel the US of A by land. So there!
Unfortunately for us we were not born with silver spoons in our mouths so to be able to go off the grid we needed some income and that is renting our house out after all, nothing special in this house. So the first things that had to be decided …
how long we are thinking of being away
long term/short term rental.. more about this later…
furnished or empty
shall we lock off a room for our stuff ( more rooms for rent more $$ ) so we got storage
house manager or management company to look after it all
where to put our cars
Long term rental AGAINST short term rental
Long term rental (over 29 days of continuous rental) there are no license needed from the city and as it is “easier “option, you just need a house manager. They charge around 8-10 % from your monthly rental income and will keep your property up and running as well as they can, but they are not responsible for disturbance or keeping on eye for breakings or dysfunctions on your property. You need to have all these little points written down on your contract for yourself that if something happens the renters are obligated to inform the manager and not just walk away or live with it!!! . Manager can not go into your property and check it for cleanliness or house condition while guest are staying there. If your Tennent does not want to leave your property after the contract is over.. it can be difficult to get the Tennent out in orderly manner. This is just few things that we talked about when deciding … I’m sure there are tons of stuff that I missed or said wrong… please let me know!
Short term rental, the daunting option of the two (under 29 days continuous rental) and you need a STOR tier 3 license from the city, easy to get and will set you back about $1250. We decided to go with Management Company and they charge between 20-25% from your month rental income and will do what house manager does + all online marketing, quest bookings and keep up with it, paperwork for the city taxes, organize cleaners that bring their own linen and towels before every visit + starter kit for the house, fill up propane canisters for BBQ, 24h security number that we will give the neighbors just incase there are things that are not in correct order or there is noice from our property past curfew times, handy man that is available 24/7, personal welcome person when guest arrive to property.
We were positively surprised that our house was perfect for rental as we do not have a pool or hot tub, as they attract “unwanted “ noice complaints from neighbors. We also are not looking for families with young kids as our outside deck has a 6ft drop off from one side (well that’s my excuse anyway and I stick to it) but dogs are welcome!! Then to find out what is the sweet spot for minimum nights rental length ?? After digging and asking we came for 5 night minimum.
What did I miss????
WE ARE PLANNING TO WALK OUT AND TRAVEL AND NOT TO HEAR ANYTHING FROM THE HOUSE!!
What we learned about getting your house rented out…
Do not rush to get house available online months and months before you leave! People do not plan anymore like they used to and get holiday rentals in time. Because I plan and get shit done does not mean that everybody does!!!
Get professional photographer to do the house pictures. It’s 100% worth it and nobody wants to see back of your head taking pics with your phone on bedroom shot!!!! 30 edited pics for $350, you do not need drone shots.
Read and get someone with experience on reading contracts to fool proof read the contract. It does not matter what you decide on your contract writing meeting it is probably not written like it on the contract when you get it for signing.
I would put extra claw into the contract about HOW SOON and WHERE you want the house been advertised. They know that there is no rush but as you have gotten yourself over the hump and sign the paper you would want something to happen. It is frustrating on your end and there is nothing you can do.. or you can be like me and get on the wrong side of “the paper” right in the beginning of the progress! ha ha
We went first with the long term rental option and decided to wait for 2 months if we get going and done and dusted easily with this! Nothing..
We had 1 month to go for our departure date and decided to apply for STOR license and go short term. It was very easy from the city side and kinda scary on our side as…….. what I wrote in the beginning.
Remember the management company is not there to hold your hand and tell you how this all is supposed to go, every case is different and they just don’t have people getting paid to hold your hand.. I learned. So PATIENTS!!!
What I learned about the house rental Apps.. Airbnb understands long term rental as over 30 day period, other apps have their own” understandings” about how many days is “long term rental” so if you don’t see your house listed when typing up 29 day rental request.. it does not mean its not there.. ha ha!!
These rental Apps work the way that if you have no reviews for your house rental you are on the bottom of the list and it's very hard to even find your rental ad. NOTHING you can do! We were offered 2 months ago that they will do couple of short term “ occupancies “ for the house even when no one is renting it and do reviews of them and get the property” going” and up on the list.. so one can at least see it!!!!! Nothing has happened (we are leaving in 1 week)!!!
There is nothing new about any of this and people familiar with this stuff are not surprised .. “That’s how it is with the rental apps and market !!!”
Make a date when you start moving out of the house, as they want to know it in every turn. Do not start packing the house too early as the packing will drag on and after a bit you get fed up cause you can not find anything .. ha ha.. going through everything that you own, piece by piece is tiring, specially if one of you likes keeping things even if not been used in years!!! AND If you are not good about making decisions… uhhh.. this is going to be long and painful journey for you
But we made it.. so it’s not unheard of!!
