Do you need to move, but can’t sell your house?
Can I rent out my house if I can’t sell it?
If you have already moved out but can’t sell your old house, or if it’s been on the market for a while and you have not been able to sell it, you are most likely considering one of two choices:
Leave it empty until it sells or rent it out to cover your mortgage and costs.
Can I rent my house out?
If you can’t afford the 1st option and are looking at the 2nd one with a bit of anxiety, it’s understandable. Even experienced landlords complain about midnight calls about faulty boilers, tenants who can’t be bothered to change bulbs and fuses, won’t wait in for engineers to come and fix the stuff they ask you to fix… or even fall out with each other and want to end the tenancy early… and those are good tenants who actually pay on time and don’t trash the property!
Renting your house out.
Renting a property out can be profitable or can at least cover your costs until you can sell your house, but it does come with pitfalls. If you are not a professional landlord but are just thinking of renting your house out, there are lots of issues to be aware of.
If you are going to rent your old home out, you need to let your mortgage lender know and make sure you have suitable insurance, make sure all gas and electrical items are safe and maintained, follow fire safety regulations, protect your tenant’s deposit in a tenancy deposit protection scheme and… the list goes on.
A good property management company will help but be prepared to pay 10% – 15% of the monthly income for that help and you will also need to set aside some money for the inevitable repairs. You will also have to pay tax on the income you receive as rent. All this is assuming that the rental income you get will be enough to cover your mortgage payment, not just now but if interest rates go up in the future.
So what else can you do?
Since the property market suffered the crash a few years ago, other ways of selling properties have become more common, especially rent to buy options. As would-be home buyers are now facing tougher obstacles when applying for a mortgage, this is a way that helps both seller and buyer as it allows the seller to move out with the knowledge that they have a “better quality of tenant” in the house as the tenant is going to buy the property as soon as they can, therefore they will look after it as if it were their own.
You don’t have to sell your house for less than market value!
If you really need to sell, there are lots of property buying companies who will offer to buy your house quickly, but at around 70% of the real value. At such a low price, you would have to have a very urgent need to move to drop your price by that much.
Not everybody is able to accept such a low price for their house and many really don’t fancy the other option of becoming a landlord either. So, if you are looking for another option that will allow you to move… If you don’t want to leave it empty because of all the costs and risks… and if you’d rather not have to put up with all the hassle of being an “accidental landlord”…
We can offer you an alternative.
You can still sell your house, and move…
Without Dropping the Price.
