West Seattle Condo Rent Market

[Sungwoo Choo]

Here's an accidental landlord trying to rent out my West Seattle (North Delridge) condo after moving out but no luck for 3 weeks. Thought about selling out the condo, but it seems condo market in North Delridge is pretty bad now...

Price was reduced ($2000 to $1850) getting one or two tours per week. Some people even just cancel the tour in short notice because of the bridge.

Marketing in Zillow (and other two affiliated sites), Apartments.com, Facebook and a few other sites. Should I reduce price further? Operating expense around $900 so in sum of interest cost, anything below $1700 would lead me to basically subsidizing my tenant. Cash flow is already bigger than negative $1000/mo since I took an 15 year loan.

Any advice for marketing strategy or anything? (Just take the hit and sell it out?) I am tired driving down and waiting for prospective tenant who just not gonna show up because they realized that the bridge is that bad.

[John Barrett]

@Sungwoo Choo another option would be to hire a property management company or real estate agent to do the lease up of your property.  There are a lot of agents who will perform this service for landlords.  While this may lead to a lower rent and higher near term it will minimize your losses near term.

Additionally, if you do have to rent for a lower rate than you are expecting you could always do a shorter term lease agreement.

Best of luck,

John