Should we rent it out?

By Erik Hare

My partner and I have found ourselves in a situation familiar to many people: What do you do with a townhome that is slow to sell?

The options we had boiled down to three possibilities:

Rent it out: The market for short term or less than six months rental is largely untapped. Landlords like leases to be at least a year, because anything else is a lot of work. In our case, it’s a lot of hassle no matter what you do.

Rent it out on a weekly basis: This is an even more difficult market, as it requires you to constantly find new people in town for business and other very short term problems. That means that they will want it furnished, which is another consideration. But there are many people looking for this kind of rental, since it is more pleasant than a hotel.

Not rent it out: The easiest way to keep it sparkling and clean for the showings is to just eat the carrying costs and leave the property vacant. But in a market where it can take many months to sell a townhome, this can be very expensive.

With these three choices, we set out to understand them better. The first thing we had to keep in mind is that there are many laws covering how to rent. We checked on your state’s Attorney General’s website first and found out a lot of small details. It was good  to ask a lot of questions up front so that we knew just what we might be getting into.

The townhome has been rented out on a month to month lease for a while now. We will probably go back to a week by week basis soon, if we have to. Finding renters is not a particular problem on craigslist, but there is the additional work needed to keep it full all the time. The biggest concern remains having it clean enough for showings.

What it seems to boil down to is that if you need the money, you have to find the renters. All you can do is hope that this does not affect the showings. The work is not especially difficult if you keep thinking of it as temporary.

Will this soon lead to the desired result - a sold property? We can only hope. In the meantime, we’re keeping on top of what we have to.

1599 Juno Avenue, St. Paul, MN