First time Landlord!!! ADVICE

[Nathan Krehbiel]

Hello All,

My name is Nathan and I am a 26 year old traveling RN working currently in Los Angeles, CA but my home base is in Lafayette, Louisiana. I bought a property in Lafayette back in September of 2016. Ended up leaving in March of 2017 to be a travel nurse. I have my sister currently living there and looking after my place but I have two empty bedrooms still. I asked my sister to see if her friends would like to move in and pay rent to help me out with the mortgage and within hours she had a couple friends who wanted to. My ultimate goal in buying this property was to "house hack" it to begin with so this works out perfect! I came to the forum today to see if anyone had advice on rental property leases. I have not written a lease before and am just looking for insight and advice.

Should I write my own? Or would it be smarter to get an attorney involved? Or would linking up with current investors and using/modifying theirs adequate? I would rather do it on my own and save the expenses that an attorney would entail. Just wanted to see what the BP world would do/have done in my situation as a firs time landlord with their first rental lease agreement.

Any input is greatly appreciated!

-Nathan

[Kurt Hines]

Hi Nathan Krehbiel and welcome to BP! Here are a few random thoughts for you.

-Check your insurance coverage. You likely just have normal homeowners on the house now, and if something happens, they may not cover it, since it is being used as a rental. Talk to your insurance agent about a landlord policy. Also tell your renters to get a renter policy for their stuff. They are cheap.

-Screen your tenants! You don't want a bad one. There are plenty of articles on the BP blogs about how to do it.

-Run your numbers! Make sure you are actually making money. You need to cover more than your mortgage payment. Taxes, insurance, maintenance, CAPEX, vacancy, etc. if you find that you are losing money every month, and you won't be back there to use the house yourself anytime soon, you might be better off selling, and taking the money to buy a rental that cash flows.

Good luck!