I rented out my place while I was in grad school, and now that I'm back in it, I can say it was the best decision ever.
The way things worked out I had just put a new kitchen in, and while I had tenants I replaced the hot water system and did some minor repairs. So that was lucky. If you have been there so long, you should be able to refinance to get some work done before putting it on the market, and as a result your mortgage may go down as payments get extended back out to 25 or 30 years. I also had a friend who worked in local real estate agent, and while she didn't do rental management, it was great having someone who could talk me through everything before I signed up.
I was pretty brutal with the amount of shit I purged, and I regret a couple of those choices, but it is so easy to accumulate junk when you have your own place. But I was moving 3000km away into a share house, so it was important to me not to cart around too much stuff. After living in Canberra for 9 years, I then purged a lot more stuff before moving back in.
In that time I had two tenants and I was super lucky. The first one moved after a year, but the next one stayed until I moved back in.
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chiming
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Date: 2017-02-18 01:58 pm (UTC)From:The way things worked out I had just put a new kitchen in, and while I had tenants I replaced the hot water system and did some minor repairs. So that was lucky. If you have been there so long, you should be able to refinance to get some work done before putting it on the market, and as a result your mortgage may go down as payments get extended back out to 25 or 30 years. I also had a friend who worked in local real estate agent, and while she didn't do rental management, it was great having someone who could talk me through everything before I signed up.
I was pretty brutal with the amount of shit I purged, and I regret a couple of those choices, but it is so easy to accumulate junk when you have your own place. But I was moving 3000km away into a share house, so it was important to me not to cart around too much stuff. After living in Canberra for 9 years, I then purged a lot more stuff before moving back in.
In that time I had two tenants and I was super lucky. The first one moved after a year, but the next one stayed until I moved back in.
Whatever you end up deciding: GOOD LUCK