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[Serious_Fun]

greetings-


I am seeking advice from those who have experience(s) renting thier home to others while overseas for a length of time...

I do not want to sell my home but I am almost ready to jump back into the "ex-pat" life of an ESL/EFL educator (this time = Taiwan)... the property-in-question is located in Portland, Oregon, "USA".

thank you!

This is my first post to the Taiwan forum - thanks to all of you for the great info. and insight(s) I have read on this forum!

[Nevermind]

My wife and I rented our home while in Taiwan for one year. Everything was OK for the first three months. Then our tennants moved out in the middle of the night and left the lease, moving to another state. We were able to get new tennants within 3 months. So we had to pay the mortgage ourselves for those three months.

My suggestions: 1) Use a professional rental company. This will usually cost about 1 month mortgage total but they will take care of virtually everything for you, finding occupants, screening them, and then pursuing them if they break the lease/do something destructive to your home. You may not want to do this but we found it helpful when our first tennants skipped town. You can certainly do it on your own if you are that industrious. Make sure they have the most strict lease you can get! 2)ask a close relative to act as the landlord while you are gone. They can handle small problems that come up, maybe a parent, brother, sister, etc-someone you really trust. 3) think about giving that person power of attorney over your home. Be careful though, power of attorney is virtually impossible to revoke, so be sure you trust the person you give it to. If you do this it will give them power to sign papers, make important decisions, in your place. This helped us because when the aforementioned tennants skipped town, one of my parents was able to sign/approve the new lease for the new tennants. Just be sure to destroy all written copies of the power of attorney upon returning to the US/selling the house-that will free you from the power of attorney. If you want to handle such signings by fax while in Taiwan, you can do that but it seemed like a headache to us 4) be sure to have your mortgage automatically drafted from a bank account. That way if you have to make several payments unexpectedly, you can just transfer money into that bank account from Taiwan. You can ask you bank to set it up so that your tennant can make payments directly into the account or you can have your tennant pay a friend/relative back home who will place the money in your bank account monthly.

I hope this helps. We are glad that we did it. Our home value has increased in value considerably and our second tennant is still renting it, almost two years now. We are also considering coming back to Taiwan sometime soon.

[Serious_Fun]

Nevermind hao!

thanks for your post.... the replies which I have rec'vd on this and other forums agree on the issue of hiring a "professional" property manager.

I was thinking about doing what you suggested re: online payment of mortgage...it makes perfect sense, and would enable me to quickly view each transaction (provided I have internet access)

My investment in this home is not such a great thing, relatively speaking, but appreciation each year is very welcome to a working person such as I ...bringing new meaning to the maxim "Home Sweet Home".