Complete Newbie in Colorado Springs - seeking advice on updating

[Lei Frazier]

Hello! I am no kind of real estate professional, but my husband and I are considering renting out our house while PCSsed elsewhere. He's in the Navy, just got PCSsed to San Diego, and we're looking into having me follow him in a few months, but we don't want to get rid of our home!

We own a fairly well-maintained Victorian in the Downtown Colorado Springs area, and we know that there are certain levels of 'ok' to a rental property. I'm here to start doing some research so we know what we need to invest into the property before renting, as well as get an idea of what else we need to focus on if we decide to move forward with this.

Our house was built in 1901, and is a beautiful 4-bedroom, 2-story house with a half (unfinished) basement. The previous owners put in an amazing 2 1/2 car garage, and it is on a 9,500 square foot property. We've replaced the stove to a gorgeous new 5-burner, and already know some projects that MUST be done before we rent, but there are a few things I'd like advice from the pros on to know if we need to throw money at it or not - because unfortunately, there's only so much we'll be able to afford, so that will help us decide if we *can* rent our home out or if we need to be more practical and sell.

My major area of concern is our walls - the majority of the interior is painted-over wallpaper, and we all know what an eyesore that can be. With the original lathe and plaster walls, having everything taken care of properly is going to be an expensive project! Is that an upgrade those of you who have done this before would do? Would you, instead, plan to invade your renters' space every few months to get a new room done? Or would you leave it, still rent the place, and plan on working on it yourself when you moved back in several years down the line?

With that asked - how much would we expect to have to lower the rent for the painted-over wallpaper? The rest of the house is in excellent condition - the electrical was updated right before we moved in, the roof was replaced as we were moving in, and the original 100-year-plus-year-old floors are in amazing shape, considering that they're fir!

We are *definitely* planning on finding a property manager, as long-distance, out-of-state management of our house (especially while learning the ropes) doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

I'm definitely *NOT* looking for a mentor, just the opinions of those further down the road learning this stuff than I am! I've always been into doing my research before taking a leap like this, and it seems silly not to see if someone else has already been in a similar situation. Anyways, thanks for reading through my babble - I'd love a chance to lean on your expertise so that we make the right decision and set ourselves up for success.

[Patrick Liska]

Lei,

If you have plaster walls, stripping wallpaper from them will be easier than if you had drywall walls. but i would wait on doing that, paint over the wallpaper now to freshen the rooms up and leave it for the tenants like that. i would not recommend allowing the tenants to paint, you don't know how good they are and it may end up on the floor and places you wouldn't think, making it more of a project to fix when you want to move back in. just because you are painting over wallpaper does not mean you have to lower rent. right now that wallpaper will help protect your plaster walls a little with tenants in there and keep the plaster from breaking off if they hit it hard enough, they leave, you strip the wall paper with the paint on it and you have a clean slate to do what you want in your home.