Sunday Gathering – Update on our rental house
By glblguy
Those of you who have been following me here on Gather Little by Little will recall that last year we decided to move up to the NC mountains. We put our home in Charlotte, NC up for sale and began house hunting in and around Waynesville, NC. Within a few weekends we found the perfect home, made an offer and inked a deal for purchasing it. Only one problem: our house in Charlotte never sold. We finally decided to rent it using the services of a property management company.
I’ve received a number of inquiries from various readers asking me if we ever sold the house and if not how things were going. Renting our home has worked out really well thus far. With the exception of this month, our tenants have always paid their rent on time. I say with the exception of this month, as it seems our tenants ran into some cash flow issues this month but I’m expecting to receive the check early next week. Our property management company has been awesome to work with as well. To be honest, renting has gone so well that I’m not sure I would even considering selling a house in the future, but always look at renting.
Now, with that said I realize I’ve only had one tenant and have only been renting now for a few months. I’ll of course continue to evaluate this and update you on anything interesting, but so far so good. The value on the home continues to rise as well, which is making it a great investment property too.
Important Stuff!
Just a few important reminders this week:
- The YNAB discount coupon expires tomorrow! If you’ve been wanting to start a budget than here’s your chance to do so using the best budgeting software available AND get it for 10% off. I promise this isn’t just an empty sales pitch either. I use YNAB Pro to do my own personal budget and love it.
- 30 Day Budget Challenge – Just a reminder that if you made a commitment to my 30 day budget challenge, we’re now over half way through the month of May. How are you doing? Are you on budget? Are you keeping it updated? Are you reviewing it with your significant other? I’ll write a post next week asking you to share you progress!
- Trent who writes at The Simple Dollar released a free eBook: Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page. The eBook expands on a few posts he wrote sometime back. Great stuff and free!
Favorite Reads:
Here are some of my favorite reads this week:
- The Koeman family – Rethinking a righteous aversion to wealth @ CNN Money
- Finding Salvaged Goods To Save Money On Remodeling Your Home. @ My Two Dollars
- How To Prepare For Car Breakdown And Deal With Roadside Emergencies @ Moolanomy
- The Entrepreneur’s Handbook – 59 Resources For First Time Entrepreneurs @ Quick Sprout
- Don’t Fall For the Convention Center “Liquidation Sale” Scam @ That One Caveman
- 10 Secrets To Curbing Your Appetite For Stuff @ Frugal Dad
- How Much Life Insurance Do You Need? @ Five Cent Nickel
- Best 0% Balance Transfer Credit Card Offers
- How to do a 0% Balance Transfer
Photo by: TheTruthAbout…
May 17th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Glad to hear renting is working out. I had wondered myself if the house in Charlotte sold, so thanks for the update.
The Waynesville area is so beautiful. My grandparents once lived in Sylva, NC, and really enjoyed their time there in the Smokies. I shared a picture from your Flickr stream with my grandfather, now 83, and he was impressed by the views. He said, “Oh boy – I sure miss those hills!”
May 17th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Thanks for the YNAB reminder – I just downloaded YNAB Pro. And thanks for the recommendation. I look forward to spending some time figuring out how to get back on the right track!
May 18th, 2009 at 1:28 am
“The value on the home continues to rise as well, which is making it a great investment property too.”
Ummm… but there’s one little problem with that statement: you weren’t able to sell the house at the price you were asking for it. It’s only worth what a willing-and-able buyer will pay for it.
May 18th, 2009 at 8:01 am
I guess I’ll never understand the rate chasing on deposits. While it’s true you can find a better rate, unless you’re depositing $100k it’s hardly worth the time. Not just the time setting up the account, but the endless emails, mailings, and phone calls from yet another bank trying to get more business from you.
I don’t have time for that crap and if I ever had that much money to try so e kind of ladder I’d just invest it in a fixed income mutual fund. To each his own, but I look at rate chasing the way I look at making your own soap.
May 18th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I used to live in Waynesville, and since my mother still does I go there sometimes. It is a beautiful place, although career wise it didn’t work out for me, I often wish it did.
May 18th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Weakonomics makes a great point. Often people rate chase with $10,000…. hardly worth it unless you are going from a .2% bank to a 4% bank, that makes sense.
I mentioned this on Four Pillars, but it is funny how both Moolanomy and I wrote on a few of the same topics in a course of a week. I also wrote a bit on roadside emergency kits that he links to from his article, so make sure to check it out readers! :)
May 19th, 2009 at 10:31 am
It’s all good on renting your home out until you don’t have a renter or the renter doesn’t pay. One of those two WILL happen at some point and unless you’ve got the cash flow to sustain two house payments then I wouldn’t do it. Ideally having one of the two houses paid off would be best.