"aemeijers" wrote in message
...
On 2/2/2011 9:28 AM, willshak wrote:

stuff snipped

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.)

Yep, it's certainly an interesting business proposition, full of so many
"what if's" that in the end, you just got to go with your gut. We're pretty
much at the point of deciding not to rent out the place and just to carry it
while we "live around" to see where we'll eventually land. I used to have
my heart set on California, but they're falling off a financial cliff into
an earthquake and a slo-mo replay of the Spanish-American war. Real estate
there seems to have actually bottomed out, at least according to the LA
Times, which is bottoming out itself.

--
Bobby G.