Short lease strategies

[Jason Bullinger]

Hi everyone! I'm very interested in real estate investing (buy and hold) and I listen to the podcast, but I still haven't bought my first property yet. Right now I'm just looking for some guidance on advertising for short term leases. I'm having zero trouble generating interest from good prospective tenants through Zillow/Hotpads/Trulia/Craigslist, but they all want to stay longer than 12 months. I'm in a situation where my previous tenants are a military family that got orders to leave 3 months into their last year and I really only need to fill the 9 months. I plan on moving back in (to my house) when I'm done with law school next year. My rental rate is equal to the market rate for the area, so I may consider dropping it a bit (but not too much or I'd be losing too much money).

Does anyone have any good suggestions for online sites other than the ones I mentioned above for finding good tenants for shorter term leases? Or maybe some places I could look for good short term renters? I was considering Rent.com but I'm not sure it's worth the money. Or do I need to just bit the bullet and start lowering the rent?

Thanks!

[Kerry Baird]

If I were at school and had the potential income from stable long-term tenants in my house, making the monthly payments, I'd keep the property rented and look to buy another owner-occupied house as soon as I was able.  What sort of family wants to move into a home, become established, rent for 9 months and then have to move?  No thanks!~

You want to buy and hold, right?  So, convert this one to your first rental, and buy your next with a thought to growing your asset base.  

-It is challenging to save up for the higher down-payment on a non-owner occupied property.  

-You will get lower interest rates on an owner-occupied property. The intent must be to occupy for at least a year, before converting the property to a rental.

-You can house-hack on the next purchase, allowing you to buy a plex unit while renting out the other unit/s.  

Anther benefit to having a continual base of tenants now is that you can count the rental income for the purpose of future lending once you have 2 years of rental income.