About to List FIRST Rental, What Must I do First?

[Carter Mahnke]

Hey everyone, I'm brand new and my family and I will be moving out of our first home soon and are planning to rent it out.

Could someone give me a rundown of the things I want to have in place and squared away before we put the listing up, or is that something I should just DO now?

We're planning to move in April.

Thanks!

[Adrienne Green]

@Carter Mahnke first off, I'm going to assume that you've done the analysis and determined that renting it out is the best financial move.  While it can be great to rent out a former primary, I've done it myself, there's also the potential that selling it and redeploying the capital into a property purchased with the intention of being a rental property would yield greater returns.  

If you do decide to rent this house out, be aware of if you've earned the primary residence capital gains tax exemption.  If so, you must sell it within 3 years to maintain that exemption.  So once you've rented for 2 years, you'll want to evaluate how much you're saving with that tax exemption, and determine if it's a better move to sell it or keep it.

With all of that out of the way, are you self managing or using a property manager?  If you are self managing, I would start with evaluating different online platforms that assist self managers: Hemlane, Realtor.com, etc.  If you are using a PM, start interviewing PMs.  The management choice you make will help guide you in what else you need to do to prepare.