Last weekend was a long one as Memorial Day was yesterday. Madhu and I did nothing special; just lazed around, watched the IPL’s final matches and researched some more for the trip. This ensured that our expenses over the weekend were low, thus contributing towards our goal of saving as much as possible before the trip …
But, of course, idle minds are also fertile grounds for more thinking … and more thinking … and more thinking!
The result of all that thinking and researching is that we have now decided to sell the house instead of renting it out. We realized over the weekend that managing a property in the US while we are gallivanting around India is not as easy as it first sounded. Finding credit-worthy renters, ensuring that they don’t trash the place, fixing stuff around the house if and when they break, finding new renters when the current ones unexpectedly move out, paying the mortgage, paying property taxes, etc. are not going to be easy tasks especially if we are not around in person to take care of them. There are companies out there that would help with this sort of thing – but that would mean spending more money. This brought us to our one big realization – renting the house out is probably going to cost us more, both in terms of effort and money, than just selling it and moving on.
We intend to contact a real estate agent soon to get a feel for the market in our area and then plan the next steps…
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