After traveling, nothing beats coming home to your own bed and relaxing in your own space. However, if you travel for a majority of the year, it might not make sense for you to pay rent or your mortgage just for a home that’s going to sit empty for months at a time. A great way to have the best of both worlds in this scenario is to rent out your home while you’re away. But in order to do this, you’re going to want to make sure that you cover all your bases before allowing someone else to live in your house. So to help you get everything taken care of properly, here are three tips for renting out your home while you’re traveling.
Work With Professionals For The Legal Issues
If you don’t have much experience with real estate or as a landlord, it might be a good idea to get the help of some professionals for the legal parts of renting out your property. According to Brigitte Yuille, a contributor to Investopedia, you’ll likely want to get a real estate attorney and an accountant to help you handle all the legal tasks associated with both owning property and bringing in rental income from that property. Additionally, you may want to work with a property management agency who can help with the day-to-day concerns of your tenants since you’ll be out traveling and may or may not have the time or resources to take care of these things.
Be Smart With Your Renovations and Improvements
In order to get top dollar from your rental income, you might be considering doing some renovation or improvements to your property before you put it up for rent. These improvements could be superficial, like having a stone accent wall installed or they could be more functional, such as having new plumbing or wiring fitted. And while this can prove to be beneficial in some instances, Jimmy Moncrief, a contributor to Landlordology.com, recommends that you only invest in things that you’re very confident will allow you to raise the cost of rent. Try not to make your home rental property too far above or below the monthly cost for other rentals in your area, even if this means forgoing a few improvements that you might like to have while you’re living there. Some improvements may be essential to make before accepting guests into your rental property. For instance, if the property needs some plumbing work so that the water turns on and off and the heating works as it should, you’ll want to reach out to the likes of plumbers in Vancouver, Washington, or wherever the property may be located, to resolve the problem.
Think about increasing the security of the home before you rent it out, too. The tenants occupying the home are probably going to be temporary residents, and may not be familiar with the house and its surroundings. Since you are the homeowner, you’ll be the best person to decide on what needs to be done to improve security and keep intruders out. Obviously, you would not prefer for a break-in to happen at any time, and especially not when you’re away and traveling. Consider having protective and secure fences installed around the house or property. Keep in mind though, that if you live in a place like Atlanta, you may be required to have an Atlanta fence permit before you can get this done. This might hold true for many other places as well, so make sure you have got everything figured out before you get started with any work.
Take The Time To Find The Right Tenants
Renting out your home because you’re gone traveling can be a little tricky, as you likely want to have your home available for you when you come back. So to ensure that you won’t have any issues with this, Elizabeth Weintraub, a contributor to The Balance, recommends that you take your time finding the right tenants for you. Make sure the contract you provide is only for the time in which you’ll be away so that everything will be ready for you to move back in once you return.
If you’re considering renting out your home while you’re away, use the tips mentioned above to help you do this correctly.
