All Forum Posts by: Randy Chappell

I really appreciate the advice and expertise in this area.  I will do a little cost evaluation (realistic rent in the area as well as talking with my property manager friend on cost as well) and see which is more feasible (cutting my losses or renting long term).  

Again, thank you for your help!

Linda, just for clarification, I have a friend who does that (property management) for a living.  

Ciera, it's truly hard to believe the market will be worse than this in the future.  We would be selling the house for $10,000 more than what we bought it for 13 years ago after sinking probably $40,000 into it in repairs and upgrades and adding 600 square feet of finished space.  

Ciera, I appreciate your input.  The bottom has dropped out of the market as too many are leaving the area and the market is flooded with homes.  My house is already very close to being 50 a square foot and I'm beginning to wonder how much lower I can go at this point.  

Greetings,

My wife and I purchased a house in a small community (mainly in a tourist industry because of the Lake of the Ozarks but our house is not on the lake) almost 12 years ago.  We purchased the house from an individual (for sale by owner) for $129,000.  The home is 2900 and it was dated (not updates since it was built in the late 70's).  We immediately put $30,000 in upgrades and have upgraded more since the purchase (including finishing 600 square feet of basement space).  But the housing market is currently very poor in our community and we are wondering if selling is really the right decision.  We had the house appraised for a lower interest rate several years into the note and we currently owe $101,000 on it (at the time, before the market crash, the appraiser gave me a quote of $175,000 on the house).  Now it appears we could have to drop down to $150,000 to sell the house (and with a realtor at 7%, we stand to lose a lot of the equity we have put into the home).  There are not a lot of large homes for rent in the area so I'm wondering if I should rent instead of selling and see if the market improves (I can't imagine that it couldn't improve).

We already own a new home and we don't really need to make money on it (but making two house payments along with electric, water, trash, etc. is not great) but we would have liked to get a little of our equity out of the previous home so we could replace a few things in our new home. 

We actually live in a different state but I have several people who I could pay a $100 to who would watch out for the home and deal with repairs as needed.  What about refinancing the house as a rental?  Is that smart?  Any advice you might have would be good.