Cedar Falls Iowa - Single Family house not renting

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Cedar Falls Iowa - Single Family house not renting

Shailesh L.
CORAL SPRINGS, FL · Member since 2015 · 16 posts · 3 votes

I have nice single family home in Cedar Falls Iowa. It's built in 2010 & has 4 bed 3 bath 2662 sqft. It's located in very peaceful & quiet neighboorhood. I lived in this house for 4 years & then I converted my primary residence in Cedar Falls Iowa to rental property. 

I kind of did house hacking without knowing the term at the time. I had good luck for last 3 years as first tenant lived there for 2 years & second tenant lived for only 1 year.  Second tenant left the property at end of July 2017. It's been almost 3 months now and I haven't got any tenant inerest in my rental property. There were few showing earlier in August but nothing has worked out.  Below are few actions I have taken to fill the vacancy  , 

  1. Advertised the property on Zillow and it's syndicated sites. Also advertised on craigslist.  
  2. Started with the rent $2,095 in August but reduced it to $1,890 since then. 
  3. I have reached out to local companies HR (Allen hospital, Covenant Hospital & John Deere) to fill out the vacancy but no luck so far. 
  4. I held open house last week but no one showed up which I thought was strange.

I am feeling hopeless at this point as what to do. I am thinking of selling the property but I may have to sell it for way less than I bought for and will suffer losses. So I am trying to hold off selling as much as I can. 

Here is the link for my rental listing, 

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1122-Amelia-Dr-...

As you see this is very nice house but really having hard time finding tenant. There are lot of rentals in Cedar falls close to the university (Univ of Northern Iowa) but my property is unique newly built (2010) and nothing compares to it. 

Do you have any suggestion what else I can do to fill vacancy ? Thank you for your time & reply, 

Best Regards 

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  • Derek Johnson
    Investor · Waterloo, IA · Member since 2012 · 82 posts · 13 votes
    9y

    Shailesh,

    I'm not an expert on the CF market, but typically I've seen the rentals there go for around $400/BR. What I think you are running into is that your house is too nice to be used as a rental property. In the upper end of the market it starts to make less and less sense to operate as a rental property because the cash flow  you can generate generally isn't enough to cover your expenses. A lot of the market in CF is student rentals, so it would basically be four students splitting the rent four ways, and the parents might be footing the bill. There's been an uptick in available rentals in the Cedar Valley which is putting pressure on rents in the higher end of the market as well. I'd recommend trying to sell if you could.

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  • Shailesh L.
    OP
    CORAL SPRINGS, FL · Member since 2015 · 16 posts · 3 votes
    9y

    Hi Derek

    Thank you for your reply. I agree there is uptick in rental inventory that putting pressure on rent.  

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  • Christopher DerrPro Member
    Investor · Garner, IA · Member since 2013 · 70 posts · 36 votes
    9y

    I agree your on the upper end by almost $300 from what I could find on Craigslistfor comparable rentals.  The Majority of people can purchase for far less than that rent range.  

    I think you did the right thing reaching out the hospital etc.  

    Did you try any of the local property management firms? Some of the ones in Mason city area have placement fees but will find renters and do all the background checks if you still want to do the monthly peoperty management.  You could try that.

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