Real estate

[gcuthbe1]

I know a lot of you have bought houses lately. I have a few things I'm debating as we look to our upcoming fellowship move.

1. When moving for residency/fellowship, did you use any medical specific resources for finding housing for rental/purchase? As in, did the program/hospital have listings or ability to ask other existing residents for advice, etc? Did you use these? When you finished residency/fellowship did you use these to sell/rent your property to a new incoming resident/fellow?

2. Does anyone have a real estate license? I'm thinking about getting mine, and how it could be very useful for buying/selling our own house(s)

3. Has anyone rented out a property they own in a different state?

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[Deebs]

I love real estate.
1. We bought during residency. I don't think I would now. We're in a seller's market, and many think headed toward a buyer's market. The timing just seems really risky.
We used a realtor and bought. When we've rented, we've also used a realtor, but I wouldn't be opposed to using hospital resources.
2. No real estate license, but I've often had the same thought,
3. We own property in Ohio that is a rental (we bought it for that purpose). We have a management company that charges 10% of the monthly rent, but handles everything. We looked at exactly how the numbers would need to align for probably two years before we jumped in.


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[niener]

We were pretty much forced by the market to rent out our home for about 3 years after we'd moved for residency. For most of that time it was being rented to a close family member so we didn't have an intermediary. If anything came up repair-wise she'd just handle it and we'd reimburse her. We also ended up renting to the eventual buyers of that house for about 4 months while some paperwork craziness got sorted out with their lender. In that situation our real estate agent became our manager basically and he was there to help if something went awry.

[OrionGrad]

1. We bought during residency and rented during fellowship, but we didn't use medical-specific resources for either.

3. We sold at the end of residency, primarily because the market was doing very well in our area, but also because our house was built in the 1920s and I did NOT want to deal with repairs while a tenant was living in the house. I loved that house, so the thought of anyone treating it less than gingerly made me want to cry. BUT, our very good friends from residency did rent out their house while they were in fellowship in another state. They used an agency, and it worked out well for them. They moved back into the same house after fellowship, and they're living there now while the husband gets settled in his first attending job (which I think is smart).

[poky]

1. We rented during med school and residency (same city, different houses); for the first one, we ended up renting a house we found out about through a city-hall office that helps new residents match up with available rentals. For residency, we found a landlord through zillow; contacted him about one house, he said "that one's not available any more, but we have two others coming available soon you can look at". I don't even know if DH's med school or residency program had any specific resources; they might have, but if they did and we looked at them, they didn't end up helping us out (unless maybe the med school pointed us at the city service? They might have).

2. We just bought the house we live in now, this year, and the MAIN benefit of our agent was that she knew people (inspector, title people, seller's agent, etc., etc.), and she knows the town intimately, and she's had 25+ years of real estate experience. She more than earned her percentage. I'm not sure that just being an agent would help all that much. It has the potential to save you a few thousand bucks, but could also cost you a whole lot, vs paying someone who really knows the business and the area. If it's something you love and want to do ANYWAY, then sure, but I would hesitate to do it thinking mostly of how much it would help you with your own sales/purchases.

3. We owned a house outright when DH decided to go to med school. We still own it, have been renting it out for 9 years, and the property management company is a godsend. They take like 8 or 10% of the rent collected, and handle any repairs and take the cost of the repairs out of the rent before they pass it on to us. For $10/month extra, we get "eviction protection", which means they completely handle any eviction action that needs to happen (haven't had to do that, but came close once). I wouldn't rent out a place out of state without a property management company handling it all (unless I was renting to friends or family who I trusted to handle things and pay their rent). We did move back to the same general area for the attending job as we'd been in before med school, but the house we're renting out is an hour away from the hospital; we decided that was too far to commute, so we rented close to the hospital for a year, and then bought the house we're in now. If his job had been closer to the old house, we would have moved back in for at least a few years, and saved a LOT of money on rent/mortgage!

[MrsK]

I know a lot of you have bought houses lately. I have a few things I'm debating as we look to our upcoming fellowship move.

1. When moving for residency/fellowship, did you use any medical specific resources for finding housing for rental/purchase? As in, did the program/hospital have listings or ability to ask other existing residents for advice, etc? Did you use these? When you finished residency/fellowship did you use these to sell/rent your property to a new incoming resident/fellow?

2. Does anyone have a real estate license? I'm thinking about getting mine, and how it could be very useful for buying/selling our own house(s)

3. Has anyone rented out a property they own in a different state?

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We rented out my FL condo while we did residency in OH and KS. What do you want to know?

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[ides]

We rented throughout medical school, residency and fellowship. For medical school and fellowship we found places to rent strictly through Craigslist. In residency we got a subsidized apartment through the program. None of the places offered any help in finding places to live.

No real estate license. I don't think it's worth it unless you want to do a lot of real estate transactions.



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[MrsK]

Also, a real estate license is not easy to get. I think you have to apprentice with a licensed realtor for a year or two.

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[SoonerTexan]

You could use a flat fee service for selling and save the 3% commission that way.

[Thirteen]

You could use a flat fee service for selling and save the 3% commission that way.

We've done this twice. Can't speak highly of it enough.


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[OrionGrad]

The woman who bought our last house used Redfin. I forget the specifics, but from what I remember it's like half human, half computer algorithm, and you (as the buyer) get half a typical realtor's commission back at closing. I think the service is only available in major metro areas, but it could have expanded since I last looked into it.

[gcuthbe1]

The woman who bought our last house used Redfin. I forget the specifics, but from what I remember it's like half human, half computer algorithm, and you (as the buyer) get half a typical realtor's commission back at closing. I think the service is only available in major metro areas, but it could have expanded since I last looked into it.

Very interesting, thank you!
And thank you to everyone for the detailed responses, super duper helpful to get my wheels turning!

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