House Rental Options while travelling for 1 year

To be clear, I'd like to go for 1 year but my wife thinks that 9 months on the road with 4 kids is enough (hence the discrepancy between the title and the message content).

I'm sure we'll find a happy compromise

Hi John,
When we did our 2 year trip with 2 kids we just sold up so if we decided that we liked somewhere better we wern't committed to coming back to Victoria.

It's expensive to store your belongings at one of those self storage places that have 24 access but we found a much cheaper option to store our belongings. There is a place in Seaford (Ron Wilson removals I think) where you just store your things in Huge wooden boxes & they are screwed shut & stored in a warehouse till you return. The only stipulation is that you give them quite a bit of notice if you want your things back early. Heaps cheaper option than the others.

We settled back in Vic by the way on a much nicer property than the one we sold.

Did not exactly answer your question but thought you might like another option. Secondly one year is NOT enough. We would have spent longer but ran out of money!

Cheers

Stuart

John & Fi ,
In 2008 we left to go around Australia with a 6 month old . We didn ' t have a real idea on how long we would be gone but were looking at least 6 months.
Our problem was that we were also unsure on how the baby would travel and things would go . This is why we chose to just turn most things off in the house and get people we knew to check up on things and collect mail . We did this just incase things didn"t go our way any we could always just go home at any stage if we needed to .
Ideally renting it as you say would be good, extra money for your travels but if your trip is shortened for any reason then you might have dramas with getting back into your own house .
One problem with what we did is that your house insurance will not cover you if your house is left vacant for more than three months or more . We took that chance and didn't inform them . You may be able to pay a extra premium so they will cover you i don't know .
Anyway you'll work it out it's a big beautiful country take your time and enjoy it .

Peter

Hi John

While many renting out experiences work out OK (99% of tenants will not care for your house the way you do, so you will be up for higher costs and maintenance when you return), i have seen the worst, both when renting out ourselves and when working in rental property management. My reply with the good, bad and the ugly will be too lengthy for here, and i cannot share email addresses with you through member messages, however if you would like details, ideas and options, email me @ westnet.com.au

Motherhen

John,

One 3 month trip a few years ago we opted to leave the house empty with regular visits and check-ups from a family member. Worked well until about the last week of our travels when it was found that we'd been broken into and a lot of stuff was stolen. Since the house was being regularly checked the insurance company didn't argue over lack of occupancy, though they probably did have grounds to do so.

Since then we've used house sitters, effectively non-paying tenants with variable success. One couple were great and remain good friends, but had to leave at short notice to deal with family matters, one was unreliable with lengthy absences, and a third couple were also great, very house proud, totally reliable, and also remain as valued friends. (It's nice to have a hot meal on the table when you get home after 3 months!)

You lose flexibility with tenants paying rent, so while the income is welcome, it's possibly not an ideal solution. We certainly will never leave our house empty again, so for us, house sitters are the go. There are several house sitter sites where potential sitters advertise and can build up a history. If you go that way, recommend getting references from previous sits, talk to the prospects and make your own judgements.

Cheers

John

We have rented our house out for holiday rental via the local estate agent (we live on Brisie Is) - all good except the neighbours did not appreciate the parties and we also lost some stuff that was pinched by tenants - not much, just annoying,

Tenants are always hard on houses so expect some extra maintenance if you do rent when you get home. As mentioned before, storing your stuff is a potentially expensive problem as is insurance for the house and that stuff. The ATO would also like to know and take their part of the rent. If they do not know any someone pots you, you will be in trouble.

We have also house sat ourselves for 6 months in Melbourne and at various times in Byron Bay. All good and we are friends now with the respective owners who come to stay with us or visa versa on a regular basis.

Renting your house to strangers is not for everyone but no problems for us as over half our income is from rentals.

Stevesub

Hi all,

Thanks to everybody for replying.

I appreciate the different options and I guess if we are going to rent it out then we just have to get lucky with the tenants.

With renting we get extra income but then we have to store our belongings - unless we are able to rent a funished house.

Tough call especially since I have a feeling we may end up staying a bit longer in one place or another (maybe take longer than 1 year)!!

I guess this is all part of the process.

Cheers

John

We went for 6 months in Feb 2009 Got home a month ago.

Would we rent a nice house NO NO NO.

Rented my house in NZ to two nice English people for a year.
Nice people with Feral kids
They ripped wallpaper wrote on it with Textas Ruined the clothes line and dont think they knew the meaning of the word "Clean"

Luckily they had overpaid the rent so it alsmost covered the damage.

Would never do it again.

We sold and bought a new house to retire into.

Furniture cost $1400 per 6 months to store. In hindsight we should have sold it all as we have since bought new stuff anyway.

However we didnt really intend to be away so long.

But so much to see why hurry.

We have just done a house sit for 6 months and would recommend you try for some good people to do that.

We paid for the power,water and internet.

Owners were more than happy as it was a 6 month old house.

They didnt make any money but nothing got damaged either.

We are now into the third year of having our home rented out. Now onto second tenants. It has been a good experience for us.

The absolute key is selection of an agent. With a good agent who does what they say, your risks are reduced dramatically. Our agent does proper inspections and sends us copies of the report. When first tenant moved out, there were some minor issues (couple of windows not clean enough, a few weeds in the garden). Agent got a cleaner and gardener in and recovered the cost via bond.

We interviewed three agents (one a family friend) before choosing the one to go with. Did not go with the family friend. It helps that our house is in the price bracket that attracts 'executive level' tenants. Still no guarantee, but when combined with the right agent - and perhaps some luck - we are very happy with the arrangement.

Our furniture etc is stored in a separate lock up workshop on the property. We are generally in the area about once a year and drop in to check our stuff and pick up anything we need. Check the house out while there.

There are horror stories of course. Now that we expect to be away from the house for a number of years, we fully expect to have to paint and re-carpet when we move back (or sell), but that is minor compared to the financial benefit we receive.

Tough decision. Good luck with it.

Norm C

Hi John and Fi, from my personal experience (as both landlord and tenant)- I would say don't rent your house out. My experience has led me to believe that the majority of real estate agents are totally useless, plus the contract you sign with them protects all of their rights and offers nothing for yourself(in legal terms). In addition to this it is a real lottery as to what sort of tenants you will get despite asking all the right questions and doing all the right checks. I don't know much about housesitters. I would think leaving the house vacant, a good insurance policy (and alrarm system)and getting a member of family to do regular checks would be the safest option.(and quite likely the cheapest in the long run) doc.

We have done short term rentals on our home for the last three winters.
Two three month terms and one four months.
We put our personal possessions in one bedroom and keep that one secured.
We have had no issues at all, but have put it through a local registered rental agent.
The biggest issue is INSURANCE.
We changed the household policy to Landlords policy which gives cover over the incoming tenants,BUT, this will not cover any of our possessions, either those secured in the spare bedroom OR those that we take with us.
This means that your wifes jewelery and your camera, laptop etc are not covered.
I did some extensive investigation in an attempt to solve this but no insurers were interested.
At least the trip this year was covered by travel insurance as we were O/S.
This said, we are more than willing to do it all again, although my wife says it is lot of work packing the personal things away.
M.

Like others we investigated the economics of renting our house when we were to be away for about 9 months last year. We found that the cost of storage of possessions, packing and transporting stuff to storage, exhorbitant insurance etc plus agents fees meant that we could not break even financially with less than 12 months letting and only if the house was let at the agent's suggested rent for the whole time. Then, even with only normal wear and tear, we would face maintenance costs, painting etc on return. As already pointed out, if you let the house you have to pay for tradesmen to be called in for every minor job around the house or face a real mess on return!
We gave up on the idea of renting. We could not face the thought of packing up the house for little benefit!
Instead we had friends who live out of town stay in the house for a few days about once a month and we paid a recommended cleaner to open up and do a quick clean once a month. This did not cost much (after all we weren't using much power, gas, water etc) and meant we came home to a clean, aired house with no mould or mildew etc! This arrangement covered us for insurance.
It worked for us and we would do it again after neighbours had nightmares with tenants and a supposedly reputable agent! Even housesitters can be unreliable unless you are lucky enough to actaully know someone who is renovating their house or something similar and needs accommodation. Lynne

We sold before we went and now we have bought a house in a retirement village we have insurance with APIA.

It is called a "Village" type plan and for $5 a month extra we can stay away for nearly 9 months a year and still be covered.

Of course it only works in this type of situation.

Also if you sell and have no home you will find trouble insuring "contents" etc on the road.
The reason is that your stuff when travelling is usually an extension of your home contents policy. Which you dont have if you have no home.

We had endless problems but finally found a Broker who got us a policy that covered all our stuff ANYWHERE in Australia.