What to do with your current house
The summary of this section is really “how much hassle are you willing to endure to avoid paying your mortgage while you’re gone?” Getting your current home costs to zero (or making a profit) while you’re away will involve some level of hassle. You’ll need to move all your stuff into either a basement/attic situation or into a storage facility, which will probably take a long time. The optimistic part of me thinks it’s a good exercise to go through every few years to get rid of stuff we don’t use anyway, but I hate moving and this option involves basically moving the majority of what you own.
We got really lucky being able to rent to the person who is also working for me while we’re away. She has a family that’s the same size as ours, and we are renting below market because we know and trust them, and they’re taking care of our pets. My replacement requested a formal lease agreement in order to enroll her kids in our local schools, which ended up being a great exercise to go through. Details like how she was going to pay, a requirement for renter’s insurance, notes about the sprinkler system – all those prompts were in Legal Zoom’s lease template ($60 for the ability to edit the lease for an unlimited time).
- Rent it to a long-term (generally defined as at least a month) renter. Pros: You can likely cover most or all your mortgage while you’re gone. You can likely deduct some expenses for sprucing up your own house (getting new furniture, etc) related to the rental. Cons: You are a landlord. You will need a property manager unless you really know the person renting and have faith that they can figure out what to do if the roof starts leaking and they can’t immediately get in touch with you. If they don’t pay their rent, you have to remind them to pay. You need a formal lease agreement. The usual landlord stuff.
- Rent it on Airbnb or VRBO. This works best if you’re in a desirable location and especially if you’re leaving in a desirable time of year. In our small mountain town, 3 or 4 bedroom family homes can go for 5 figures a week during the last two weeks of December. That may be enough to pay for your mortgage while you’re gone and even have some extra money for traveling. We were lucky enough to rent directly to the person who covered for me at work, so the dates aligned perfectly. We priced the house below market rent because we knew the family and they were taking care of our elderly cat and fish, and because we didn’t have to hire a property manager while we were gone.
- Do a house exchange. Even if you don’t do a direct exchange with the place you’re headed, places like Home Exchange will give you points for letting others stay there, so you can use them for future travel.
- Just leave it. If you’re going to be gone a short time, it may be more hassle than it’s worth to pay your town’s short-term rental fee, move all your stuff, and take on the liability of having someone else in your home.
- Pay someone to live in it. You can hire a house sitter or have someone come by periodically to get mail and check on the plants. If you have pets, this may be the best option.