Hello

has anyonehere moved home without selling their house, and rented it out instead. If so what problems (if any) did you face with regards to maintenance, etc?

We have tried in vain to sell our house for the last 9 months and as I am 3 months pregnant we are running out of time so have decided to let it out instead but I have never been a landlord from so far away before. It's not like we can just nip to the house anytime something needs done! So I would be interested to hear anyone else's perspective on this.

Thanks

Mel

We moved home in May, and although it was from NZ rather than OZ, I am sure its the same sort of thing!!! We rented our house out to some UK friends who were on 18 month contracts out in NZ, so we have guaranteed tenants til the end of next year - as we know them really well we were happy that they could deal with any maintenance issues that arose and would be sensible (fingers crossed and all that!!) - if we hadn't known that they needed somewhere we would no doubt have gone through an agent, as although they obviously make a charge for the service, they will deal with any maintenance issues. We had only finished building the house in Dec 06, so we felt that it would be better for us financially to keep the house for a while in the hope that the property values in the particular sub-division we built on would go up - if we had sold it when we left NZ we would probably have only just made back what we put into it (and here's hoping that we have indeed made the right decision, and that there isn't a price crash!! ah well, its all good fun!)

I think a lot of rental properties in Oz and NZ are owned by people overseas, so I'm sure that if you ask around the rental agents there will be some useful advice that they can offer you.

Hope this helps

Maggie

just a thought

maybe try a real estate to handle it for you.(the rental)..they will do inspections for you ..and ensure your property is being looked after. real estates..well most! are very thorough etc......i have a freind who rented hers out through one ~and having lived in rental properties...i know from expereince about the inspections and them ensuring rents are paid etc etc...



good luck with everything and your new baby to be!...

This is an option that I am looking at, renting out Oz house and mioving back to the UK.

I will be interested to hear from anyone who has done this.

The difficulty is that the rent would probably just cover the mortgage but would not cover things like the rates, agents fees or any additional costs that crop up from time to time.
Plus we would arrive back in the UK with all our equity tied up in Australia.

In my experience do not rent it without using an agent.

Countrywide website is a god place to start, they offer various levels of service.

When we moved to oz from the UK we rented our flat. Unfortunately the girl upstairs washing machine blew up and flooded our flat. Tenants were very p... off as they had to move out immediately and it was a nightmare trying to sort everything out from over here despite having an agent. We had to go back to get it sorted so we sold it once the damage was finally fixed - just too hard.
If you cannot sell then definately get yourself a really good agent.

thanks for your replies

have spoken to an agent today, there will be a shortfall of about $160 a week between our rent and our mortgage, but at least we will be paying off a mortage and we will be home so we are willing to take the loss.

Fingers crossed then we can be back in cold, wet and beautiful Scotland by mid September

Mel

Ooops sorry, countrywide are in the UK!

Still recommend using an Aus agent, don't do it yourself.

Make sure you insure the buildings (and/or contents), because it includes public liability...Landlord insurance policy with AAMI is a good one, covers loss of rent.

Just another quick one.
Rental Tenancy Authority (RTA) don't know if national, but in Queensland they hold all the legislation regarding being a landlord, even if you go with agent, you should educate yourself about the rules.

thanks, there is a tenancy authorit in Vic, I remember egtting a leaflet when we were renting. And I will look into landlords insurance, hadn;t thought of it

good luck with everything!..~..my husband and i hope to visit Scotland one day.....~...his mother and her parents etc are scottish..she came to Canada after meeting her future husband when he was in Scotland doing demonstrations on ice hockey when they were teens..such a romantic story.......we would love to go visit her birth country~ we hear it is beautiful.