Landlord Advice for Renting Your Second Home

If you have a vacation home, no doubt it is your little piece of paradise that you escape to whenever you can. But if you’ve found the ability to escape less and less, if you’d like to find a way to help pay for the mortgage on it, then renting it out as a vacation rental property might be a good idea. But how do you go about it? Here’s some landlord advice:

Set goals. First you need to decide what your goals are for renting out your second home. How many weeks a year are you willing to give it up to strangers? Do you hope to just cover expenses, or make a profit? If your goal is to break even on your expenses, use this as a guideline to calculate your break-even point:

If your monthly mortgage payment is less than or equal to 1 peak-week rental fee, and you rent approximately 17 weeks per year, your property should come close to breaking even. Most rental markets average 12 peak weeks. Other costs (utilities, association dues, etc.) are paid by earnings from approximately five weeks of off-peak rentals.

Check the rules. You’ll need to find out whether renting out your home is acceptable under the terms of your homeowner’s association, or whether there are certain rules regarding renting out your home that you need to be in compliance with.

Pick a boss. Decide whether you want to serve as the landlord and property manager, or whether you’d rather hire a property management company to do it for you. Duties will include advertising your property, responding to inquiries, taking reservations, obtaining the property rental agreement and payments from guests, handling guest requests and problems, and providing cleaning and maintenance services as needed. 

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Landlords, Would You Rather Rent to Obama or Romney?

As the presidential election nears, Apartments.com had a little fun by surveying their visitors to find out who U.S. renters want to win the election: A whopping 66.8 percent said they’d prefer Obama was elected, with 21.6 percent favoring a Romney/Ryan White House.

When respondents were asked who they think will win the election, Obama had even better numbers, with 78.3 percent of renters polled predicting the president will win re-election. Obama also proved to be more popular on a personal level with renters than Romney. The survey showed 74 percent would rather have the president as a roommate while only 26 percent preferred Romney. Apartment dwellers would also rather give their rent checks to Obama, with 74.4 percent saying they would rather have Obama as their landlord and 25.6 percent preferring Romney.

Apartments.com did a similar survey four years ago before the last presidential election, and they noticed some similarities and differences in the answers four years later. For example, the number of survey respondents who said they are registered to vote fell 10 percent from 2008 to 2012, and more than 40 percent described themselves as very politically active back in 2008 in contrast to the 22 percent who consider themselves that way today.

Respondents were not asked about tenant verification for the two candidates, but it’s a pretty safe bet they’d both pass a rental background check and renter credit check with flying colors.

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Consider color when repainting

Landlords often regard painting to be a necessary evil. They know that in order to make the rental unit appear clean and new, painting between tenants is often required, especially in hallways and other high-traffic areas. In order to please the most people and keep the place bright, most landlords default to white or light beige for paint colors. But before you pick up another quart of Eggshell Semi-gloss, consider the possibility of branching out in paint colors just a bit.  By keeping them fairly light pastel shades but trying different hues in different rooms, you could make your rental property really stand out from the crowd.

When deciding which colors to try, consider these general rules regarding colors:

• Pale blues, greens and lavenders can have a calming effect. Consider using these colors in a renter’s bedrooms or bathrooms.
• Green also is a great color for a home office—it is considered the “color of concentration” and if there’s any truth to that, a nice pale shade of green on the walls where the computer will be might not be a bad idea.
• Warm tones, such as yellows, oranges, and reds, are friendly and inviting. These rooms often are good in the living room or entryway, but don’t be too bold. Consider painting one accent wall rather than doing an entire room in red.  Also be mindful that bolder shades, especially red, have been shown to increase heart rate and blood pressure, stimulate activity and also increase appetite!
• Neutral colors have broad appeal in rental units because they’re, well, neutral. Light beige and eggshell or cream are relaxing and inviting. Plus it’s a safe bet they’ll go with just about anyone’s furniture and décor. If you want to stay neutral but branch out just a bit, consider taupe or grey/beige.

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Repaint main rooms between each tenant

Do you paint your rental unit between tenants? Should you? Everyone knows it’s easier to market and show a rental unit when it is aesthetically at its best; that means professionally cleaned carpets, a pristine bathroom, and a glistening kitchen. But what about the walls? Nicks and scuff marks on the walls can make even the cleanest apartment appear unclean and “used.”

Most people don’t ever wash their walls, but dust, dirt and residue from smoke, perfumes and other things can build up on them, making them appear dingy. Barely noticeable to a casual observer, if you look closely at a wall inside any residence, you can tell whether or not the room is actually really clean.

Repainting at least the most high-traffic rooms between tenants is always a good idea. Even if by some miracle your tenant hung no pictures or curtain rods that required any kind of drilling, screwing or nailing hardware into the walls, chances are they did have and move furniture inside the residence, leaving scuff marks and scratches on corners and in hallways.

Knowing that you’ll most likely be repainting frequently, don’t spend a lot of money on super-high quality, super-expensive paint. Select something neutral and bright, and include a stipulation on the lease that allows for the tenant to paint ONLY IF they agree to repaint to the original color before moving out. Last but not least, select a paint color (and write the exact color name, number and manufacturer on the rental agreement) by a high-profile, easy-to-find brand, so you’ll be able to match the color exactly the next time a tenant moves out

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Girl becomes homeowner, landlord at age 14

Rental property investment is a business more and more people are getting into as a second, or even retirement, career. But Port Charlotte, Fla., might have the youngest landlord in the U.S. Fourteen-year-old Willow Tufano bought a house in a short sale in Port Charlotte for $12,000. The three-bedroom house is now rented out for $700 a month.

According to news reports, the home had been on the market for $100,000 at the peak of the housing bubble. It was listed at $16,000 but Willow (and her mom) got it for $12,000. Willow put down $6,000 cash and her mom, a real estate agent, ponied up another $6,000 for the house.

The teenager, who recently appeared on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” said she earned her money primarily from offering a service where she clears out foreclosed houses on behalf of the new investors, picking through the stuff and reselling any goods or appliances that she can. She also spends her weekends looking for deals from garage sales and reselling them for a profit on Craigslist. She started buying and selling things at age 12 and had $6,000 saved in a year and a half.

After closing on the house, she made a few improvements and turned it around to rent, becoming a new landlord at the ripe old age of 14. Not a bad start to what surely will be a career in rental property investment.

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