I'm planning on renting out my house and need some ideas on how to handle certain things. The house is a ranch with a 3 car detached garage with an above ground pool and about 3 acres of land. Who should handle what as far as the land and the pool? Should I pay for both to be maintained or leave it up to the tenant? Also, with the 3 car garage, should I rent all 3 to the tenant or keep one for myself? Do you think that will deter potential tenants?
Mechanicsburg, PA · Member since 2013 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
2y
I would never rent a house with a pool due to maintenance issues as well as liability. We had a pool at one of our personal houses and went away for a week and neighbor was supposed to be taking care of pool Maintenace. When we came home the pool was split pea bright green and took weeks to get back to normal. I've know of 2 families that lost children in their family pool, would not want to have that happen where I was responisble. We have had 2 houses where we removed pools, 1 was large above ground with a deck and the other was in ground with concrete around the pool. For me its a hard rule no pools at rentals. Exception being a condo where there is a community pool, whose maintenance and liability are not my responsibility.
Mechanicsburg, PA · Member since 2013 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
2y
We did have a rental house, renting for over 20 years where the lot was 2 acres. For one tenant we provided lawn service and added that to the rent along with snow removal. Other tenants were responsible to mowing, some hired it out other cut the lawn them self. We did get push back from tenant prospects that did not want to spend the hours needed to mow the lawn. So it did reduce the rental pool. (pun intended)
Mechanicsburg, PA · Member since 2013 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
2y
we also had a house with a detached 2 car garage, and the tenants we rented to did not want the garage. It was in the back of the property and faced an alley, so we rented it to another tenant, who had 2 show cars. The garage tenant stayed for 17 years, during which time I never saw them, talked to them a few times, and they paid the rent every month like clockwork. They only moved out when I sold the property and the new owner/occupant wanted the garage for them self.