On 2/2/2011 9:28 AM, willshak wrote:
Robert Green wrote the following:
We've been thinking of renting our current home rather than selling in
this
down market while we rent in some of the places we're thinking of
retiring
to. Unfortunately, movies like "Pacific Heights" where a bad tenant who
knows all the tricks of staying in a place without paying rent, haunt us.

Yesterday I saw a 'People's Court' episode where a deadbeat had
managed to
stay, rent-free, in a Section 8 rental for three years by using a
loophole
that says a tenant can't be evicted from Section 8 housing if there
are code
violations. Every time he was about to get evicted, he just broke
something
to forestall the eviction process, eventually plugging all the sinks with
rags and flooding the place.

How can you drive a bad tenant out from a rental in such situations?
How do
you prevent them from completely trashing the place on their way out? I
know that tenants should be checked out thoroughly beforehand, but
even so,
people can have no record of evil behavior but still turn evil. While I'd
probably NOT rent to any Section 8 tenants, I could easily see someone
losing their job or some other such tragedy and so decide they wanted to
live in my house rent-free for as long as they could get away with it.

I'll entertain all solutions, even extra-legal ones (as long as I can
implement them without getting caught!).

--
Bobby G.


I've read all the other responses.
The one thing I would recommend is to get in touch with a real estate
rental agency.
Let them do the selection and take care of the rent collection.
They take a percentage of the monthly rent that they set, so the higher
the rent, the greater the percentage.
You won't have to check on the house occasionally since the agent will
do that too.
Besides, they are up on the laws.



Ask the percentage, before they start filling out the forms. Sometimes,
market-dictated rent minus their cut, doesn't leave enough to pay the
mortgage and insurance. All depends on how nice the house is, and how
short the local rental property supply is for people who don't want to
(or can't) buy their own place.

I've known a couple people that did it anyway, out of desperation, and
ended up selling the house cheaply a year later, because the place was
still costing them money. IMHO, if you can't rent it out for at least,
oh, 130% of your fixed expenses, you are better off selling and getting
the loss over with (assuming you are not so upside down it would wipe
you out, of course.)

--
aem sends...