One of the last steps in this part of the journey is renting out my house. Similar to my experience of selling my things, I told a lot of people, had a lot of interest, but in the end, no concrete takers. I almost had one–my neighbor that came to tell me that my cat had been hit by a car led to a conversation about moving and my plan to rent the house. She expressed that her daughter might be interested and then I never heard any more about it.
When, months later, I was outside spray-painting a sign for my garage sale, she approached again and asked if I had found another renter, and when I said I hadn’t, she called her daughter up right away and she came to look at it. She really loved it and I was very hopeful, but it turned out that the daughter’s boyfriend didn’t want to live so close to her mom after all.
The cute older couple I had stood and chatted with for over an hour told me about a particular rental agency that they recommended, and then a co-worker of mine recommended the very same place as one she used herself and who could find me a renter very quickly. I’ve contacted them and they have toured my house and sent me all the paperwork to get started, but I still have some yard clean up to do before they can show the house. It won’t do to have rotting piles of wood and metal things sticking out of the ground when you are a liable property owner. (Though apparently, it is fine to sell a house that way, as these are all inherited issues.)
It turns out it’s pretty expensive to start renting your house! Hopefully, it will all work out in the end. They will charge much more for rent, but I have to pay for them to handle everything. The upside is that they will handle everything–all repairs and emergencies, even evictions. So hopefully that will give me more time to work on my own projects and I won’t have to worry about things when I travel. It’s a bit of a hard pill to swallow (I think about $750 in up-front fees before they even find a renter) but I do think it will be better in the long run.
I so wish we had used a management company rather than try to deal with renters ourselves. It got messy for us so that money you spent on the management company was well spent!