Need To Sell Your Home But Can’t? Here’s The Next Best Option…

Whether you need to move due to a family situation, a job relocation, or just take advantage of the low home prices in today’s real estate market, you may have discovered that your home is not worth what you owe on it (for many, this is unfortunately a sad understatement).  But there really may be another option for you that will allow you to move on and not be stuck in your current residence – it is the often misunderstood but fairly profitable option of… drum roll please… renting.  Renting a home is a dreaded option only to many owners because it is an unknown experience that most have heard horror stories about.  However, to the trained real estate profession, renting your home can be a viable option that will give you peace of mind.

 

I am sure you are wondering how leasing your home and becoming a landlord can actually provide peace of mind when you have probably heard of rental properties being destroyed by tenants or tenants just never paying rent as they should.   Well, similar to the time-tested real estate mantra of Location, Location, Location, the mantra for leasing out a home and it being a prosperous rental property  is Screen, Screen, Screen.

 

The most important, but often neglected, step of the leasing process is screening the prospective tenant and not relenting on the tenant passing various checkpoints during the screening process.  In many instances where a tenant does not pay rent as scheduled or leaves behind a trail of carnage to a home, that tenant usually had a track record for doing such meaning this would have been discovered during a proper screening process.

 

The second most important step of the leasing processing is having a very thorough lease that speaks to as many possible scenarios that could arise as possible.  Such as what if the tenant needs to move out early or stay later than the lease end date?  Or, what if you need to move back into the home before the lease expires?  These are just some areas that need to be addressed and have provisions in the lease.

 

The third most important action item for leasing a home is doing a move-in and move-out inspection and saving those documents!  Many landlords know to do a move-in inspection and even take pictures but regrettably forget to save it and remember where it was saved – yikes.  This is vital to have so that upon the tenant’s move-out, you can actually compare the state of the home from beginning to end to know how to access and make deductions from the tenant’s security deposit.

 

Have further questions about Georgia’s rental process or would like a personal assessment of your Metro Atlanta home to be rented?  Contact places2love@gmail.com for more details.  Happy leasing!