Real Estate News & Information April 29, 2019

To Sell or to Rent? The Perks and Pitfalls of Being a Landlord

Electing a full sale or a property management situation is a life-changing decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly. In choosing whether or not becoming a landlord is right for you, there are a number of factors to consider, but primarily they fall into the following three categories: financial analysis, risk, and goals.

The financial analysis is probably the easiest of the three to perform. You will need to assess if you can afford to rent your house. If you consider the likely rental rate, vacancy rate, maintenance, advertising, and management costs, you can arrive at a budget. It is important to both be detailed in your projections and to have enough reserves to cover cash-flow needs if you’re wrong. The vacancy rate will be determined by the price at which you market the property. Price too high and you’re liable to be left vacant. Should you have applicants, they’ll often be a group that for some reason couldn’t compete for more competitively priced homes. Price too low and you don’t achieve the revenue you should. If you want to try for the higher end of an expected range, understand that the cost may be a vacant month. Any way you slice it, it’s difficult to make up for a vacant month.

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Guest PostReal Estate News & Information March 4, 2019

10 Tips to Minimize Stress When Selling Your Home

When I was growing up, my family must have moved a dozen times. After the first few moves, we had it down to a science: timed out, scheduled, down to the last box. Despite our best efforts, plans would change, move-out and move-in days would shift, and the experience would stress the entire family out. Despite the stress, we always managed to settle in our new home and sell our old one before the start of school.

With a lot of planning and scheduling, you can minimize the stress of selling your house and moving. Here are some tips:

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Case Studies February 28, 2018

SELLER SUCCESS STORY: Joelle’s Big Adventure

Joelle’s charming 1909 Seward Park Craftsman sold for $16,000 above asking price.

Joelle owned two Seattle homes: one in the Central District that she lived in and one in Seward Park that she rented out.

I first met with her because she intended to list the former in order to achieve some financial freedom and be able to travel, but she wasn’t quite ready to take off yet, so figured that once she sold the Central District home she occupied, she’d rent something in the area to live in until she was ready to go.

However, I advised that she reconsider that strategy after reviewing rental prices in her Central area neighborhood, and cautioned that—with rising prices—once she sold her home, she would not likely be able to purchase another one there.

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