All Forum Posts by: Deirdre Lizio

Most brokers in the Boston area will charge the tenant the leasing fee, so the landlord usually doesn't pay this.  You can get a great tenant with the help of a thorough broker without committing to property management.

I agree with @Joe Scaparra, selling is a very sensible option.  Aside from the benefits he mentions, @Greg Friedman, you absolutely must be familiar with how foreign income is to be taxed in your destination country.  Having lived abroad myself for many years, I can say I underestimated what a pain taxes would become.  There is often a time limit on how long you are exempt from paying local taxes on foreign income, and of course you will owe the US for life.  Last thing you want is to decide to sell after you've been abroad for a while, and then owe both the foreign and the US government on the capital gains.  Also note, as I learned the hard way, different governments define and calculate capital gains differently! :/

Hey Greg,

I think part of this depends on how far away you are and whether you have neighbors or relatives that can visit you property in the event a visit is required.  Full disclosure:  I am a property manager in the Boston area.  What we find is that owners in your position can do well in a set of ideal circumstances:  the home is in great condition, they find excellent tenants who treat the property with care, and nothing crazy happens.  If you think you can put that in place, yes, you will save the cost of a property manager and keep more in your own pocket.  On the other hand, if anything unexpected happens, you want someone who is going to watch out for your investment.  This starts early on with preventing what could potentially go wrong by attracting an awesome tenant and looking at what vulnerabilites currently exist in your property.  Do you want to keep the property to return to later?  Is the move abroad sort of a "trail" to see how long you want to stay away?  How important is profit vs protecting your asset for a future use?  These questions really matter.  A guy recently came to us for advice: he rented his house in MA and moved across country.  When the tenants moved out, he discovered they had utterly trashed the place and the cost to bring it back to market standard (and thereby get a more desirable tenant) was beyond him.  He had to sell.  So you can see, of course it is possible and you can manage most things remotely, but you will be introducing a higher level of risk.   It just sort of depends what your goals are, how important this house is to you, and what level of risk you are willing to take!  Also, I highly recommend doing an analysis of how much you stand to make with and without property management, then see if the difference in profit justifies the risk. Some people are surprised by what they learn when they do the math.  Hope that helps!

Deirdre