Dina ElBoghdady chronicles the sales experience of one Washington DC home owner in this recent Washington Post article. Here's a brief summary of this seller's story.

Six years ago the seller bought a property and invested $150,000 in remodeling costs. He lived in it for three years and then decided to move. He bought a new home before selling his current home. At that time he did not think he could sell his current home for the price he wanted, so he decided to rent until the market got better. He finally put his property on the market this summer, but so far he has had no takers. Now the seller is thinking of taking his property off the market and renting again until the market gets better.

What struck me most about this article is this quote from the seller, explaining his rationale for renting (rather than selling) his home three years ago:

"I decided to do the conservative thing, collect rent on this place and wait a couple of years for the market to improve."

The seller describes his approach as "conservative", but as I recently posted in this article, renting in a downward trending market is actually very risky. This seller's rental strategy is based on the hope that market prices will rise very soon, rather than the reality that market prices are still decreasing and have yet to "bottom out".

Here's the very expensive lesson that many accidental landlords have learned about renting in a downward trending market: Every month of collected rent represents another month of market value lost.

And yet this seller appears to be on the path of becoming a landlord once again.

Dan Miller, Realtor, Keller Williams Realty and www.DaneCountyMarket.com