Just mulling this over in my head. Is this a bucket of worms or a lucrative income generator? You would have to buy say a $200K home 3 or 4 bedrooms in good shape. Zillow says on average you should get $1750/mo. rent for this. So like $21K in rent you would receive for the year. Roughly $5K for taxes subtracted leaves $16K. Subtract $1500 for insurance on the house leaves $14,500. Subtract $4500 for a "maintenance fund". Leaves $10K yr. That is $833 per month income.

Am I missing anything in this equation? Anyone else do this?

Add lawyer fees when you get a squatter. Not worth the aggravation. Been there ... done that.

Good point. Forgot about lawyers and contracts etc.

It is a pain in the arse. I would not... Tenants can be hell on a property; however, I know a few that own them and do well on their rentals.

Yeah. There is a double edged sword there. If you have a nice house to rent in order to get a High Rental rate, you would have to keep it maintained. Like Baltic Avenue vs. Park Place.

Agree .... obviously people make money doing it. Have good tenants and so on. But when it goes bad ... it goes really bad. There are less stressful investments in my opinion.

The Hassel factor is high on rentals.That is why the rewards can be higher.

Had one once that would call with a mouse and then would call when you caught the mouse for you t empty the trap.

Never again for me.

It's not bad. The insurance is less than that, the rent might be more, your maintenance won't be near that much most years. Property taxes may be more. You can always talk yourself out of making money. I generally wouldn't suggest financing one.

I had a friend at work that tried it. Divorce in the rent house. Squat. And squat ended up pouring sackcreat down all the toilets.

Right, not financing is a good plan. As an income generator, just wondering what the pitfalls could be. Even with my conservative numbers and "set aside" it is like 4.5% a month on $200k. That is not bad. After a few years if it gets painful, you can still try to sell the house and most likely, its value would appreciate, if you made sure it was kept up. I would have to initally get a lawyers advice/consult on the rental contracts, liabilities, etc.

That gives new meaning to the phrase "He shixt a brick".

It’s all about the renters. I’m an insurance adjuster and see the bad side of renting. People that can’t make rent and destroy property like it’s the homeowners fault. Also the law somehow seems to side with tenants over homeowners and eviction can take forever. But if you find good renters it can be a great deal.

Interesting points. For property insurance, as an owner, I suppose I would only have to insure the building and it would be up to the Renters / Lessee to insure their contents. I know my taxes will be higher since none of my exemptions /homestead, over 65 would apply.

I had a coworker rent out his Seattle house while he worked overseas for a couple of years. He had an agency do the background checks and collect the rent. The renter was eventually busted for making meth in the house. He had to strip the house clean, have it professionally tested and certified, repainted the interior and recarpeted before he could sell it. He hasn’t rented out anything since then.

ooops, not good.