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How Much Rent Should I Charge for a House / Home?
Landlord Tenant Guide PART 1

"How much rent should I charge my tenants for a rental home?" Our landlord tenant guide will reveal the answer to this question and show you how much rent to charge for a house. Find out what is the perfect rent that will maximize your rental profits while keeping your vacancy rates to the minimum.

Just like other many decisions that you will have make as a landlord, it's important to get your facts first before jumping in. Read our landlord tenant guide and find out
how much a landlord should for charge for rent:

Make Use of Your Home Value as a Rough Estimate of the Rent Amount

If you still have no idea on how much rent to charge for a home, a good place to begin will be the home value of your rental property. Some professional landlords recommend this method as a crude measuring stick for your rent.

The general rule of thumb for rent charging is to set your monthly rent equal to 0.8 to 1.1% of your rental property's home value.

The higher your home value, the lower your rent percentage is likely to be. If your home value is $100,000 or less, the estimate of your monthly rent can hover around 1%+ which will work out to be $1,000 or less. If your home value is $350,000 or more, it's probably more feasible to gun for about 0.8% which is equal to a monthly rent of $2,800 or more.

In general we do not recommend charging a monthly rent that is less than 0.8% of your home value because you will have a safety net to protect your profits against interest rates increases, major repairs or long periods of vacancy.

Do remember this method is only helpful as a rough estimate for answering the question of "How much rent should I charge for my home?". Never rely on it alone to decide on your rent amount.

Compare the Rent of Similar Rental Properties in Your Neighborhood

Comparing rent prices may seem like a piece of cake but there are still things you will have to watch out for. Always compare apples to apples and pears to pears when it comes to how much rent to charge for a rental home.

The rental properties that you use for comparing should be of similar type, size and condition as your own. On top of that, you should only look at recent rent prices (in the last 3 to 6 months) in the same neighborhood.

How do you get your hands on the information required for comparing rent prices?

Browsing through the classified ads in your local newspaper is the traditional way but it remain highly effective till this day. If you want to save time and money, Check out your local newspaper's website to see if they have an online version of their classified ads.

Nowadays landlords also have the luxury of searching and comparing rent prices with online landlord tenant guides. The more popular websites include Realtor.com and Apartments.com. These sites are highly helpful as a landlord tenant guide on how much rent to charge your tenants since their listings tend to contain more details and photos.

If your rental property is in the United States, the HUD User website will be another helpful place to carry out your rent research. This government website will regularly publish the updated fair market rent for different areas in the United States. Even if you are not renting out your property to Section 8 or subsidized tenants, it's still a good place to look.

Now that you know how much rent to charge for a house, do you tell if your rent is too high, too low or just right?




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