I just went through a similar situation. Moved to Newport Beach in March 2007 and kept my house in Austin as a rental.
I wasn’t planning on buying in S. Cal, so I thought it’d be great to keep a rental while waiting for a transfer to another part of the country.
Just moved to SLC a few months back, and my tenants were still in the property in Austin. My realtor/property manager said signs were all pointing toward a major slow down in Austin, so I offered the home for sale to my current tenants last month. Great tenants, but I knew I was in for a lowball offer.
I accepted approx. 40K less than what I could have gotten for it 9 months ago (SW Austin, Travis Country 4/2 for $322,000.)
Things to keep in mind:
1. I did not like the stress of not being able to take care of the “little things” that went wrong when I lived in the house (I’m not cut out to be a landlord.)
2. What is happening to prices in S. Cal will be happening much quicker in Austin, as the cheap money was still available until early this year, and prices just started dropping.
3. A ton of Californian’s bought homes in Austin (3 of my 5 neighbors) over the past few years as investments, so rents have not gone up like they have in many markets. Still below 2001 levels.
4. My realtor/property manager said sales have been “tepid” over the last few months.
5. You can’t look at what your home was worth last year…I “lost” 40K, but it wasn’t my money to begin with, and I still took a nice profit.
I would drop your price to 25K under a comp. that was sold in the past month and hope to start a bidding war.
BTW… Can anyone recommend a site similar to this that tracks the SLC market?
