I think we are in the same situation! I have a house 1800 miles away that I have been very slowly cleaning out for the past year (needless to say, it has been a very painful and sentimental task). Since I can only go out at a week's time, I have spaced out my trips every 4 months. There are items I want to keep, but most is good furniture that I want to sell at a fair price. Here is what I have done and my experiences: 1. Yard sales. Can be good, but very, very time consuming. Especially if you are going it alone. Good way to get rid of the small stuff. Promise yourself that whatever doesn't sell, DO NOT box it back up, but instead truck it over to a local charity. 2. Ebay. I have found that you really need to be on-site for at least 2 weeks: lots of stuff to do prior to auction end (writing the listings, taking initial photos and extra photos as requested by potential buyers, answering emails) and after auction end (waiting for payment, boxing and shipping items, followup emails). An example: I sold parts from a collector truck that my late husband dismantled. Listed as a 3 day auction, started most bids at 9.99 with a buy-it-now price, and (very important!) required payment within 3 days via Paypal (no checks - takes too long). I boxed/shipped small items and left large items (such as doors, windshields, engine parts, etc) to a professional shipping service to box and ship. Whew! It was a 2 week whirlwind of dirty truck parts that I knew nothing about, but it was a success: got most of the truck sold within my tight timeframe. An alternative is to use a Ebay agent: they will list, pack, and ship. I believe they charge around 30%. 3. Consignment Shops: good for big ticket items such as furniture. Most will pick up item for a fee, but if not sold within a specified timeframe, either you need to pick up yourself or they will donate it. Usually a 60/40 split, with most going to you. However, the longer it is in the store, the ratio may change. 4. Donate, donate, donate: Some items are just better to give away and get a tax beni than to deal with selling it. 5. I haven't used it, but am looking into it: renting a POD. They drop one off, you pack it at your leisure, then they move it to whatever state you want. Another similar option is ABF moving (you pack, they drive) - we used them to initially to move out west. Once I get most of the stuff cleared out that I don't want, large pieces I cannot move myself I will have POD or ABF handle. For the valuable, sentimental,breakable, etc things, I will take with me on a "cross-country adventure move" (have to play it up somehow). Since you will be out in September, use that short time to take photos of items for Ebay, maybe get stuff into consignment stores (you can pick up the stuff in November if it doesn't sell), call for quotes on movers (starting in October is usually their slow time so rates will be cheaper than the summer), check out the local ebay agents (in phone directory). Prior to your November trip, get your Ebay listings written with photos so you can list them on your first day (I have found people will email you throughout the auction asking for more info including aditional photos, so I have found that I really need to be where the item is during the auction.) Good luck to you. It can be very overwhelming, so try to break things up into manageable tasks.

Thanks again, everyone, for all of the replies! To address some of things that have been mentioned... We will definitely talk to the landlord before making any final decisions. Our friends, the current tenants (who are wonderful people and a landlord's dream), are also planning to put in a good word for us. Our agreement would be contingent upon the rent remaining the same, the lease going month-to-month after one year, and the landlord not having any plans to sell the house. If any of those conditions are not met, we will not rent the house. The landlord does not know yet that the tenants plan to move out, so we have to wait for them to talk to him first. All of this is hinging on the deal for their new house, and they are currently still in negotiations. If their deal does not go through, which is certainly a possibility, then we will do nothing for now. I want to be ready with our decision as soon as they know for sure, though, which is why I am going through all the pros and cons now rather than waiting to see if the opportunity will actually materialize or not. If we do move into the rent house and put our current house on the market, we will not start looking for a new house until our house is sold and our lease is up or almost up, so there will be no issues with finding the perfect house and not being able to get out of our lease. Trust me, I remember how stressful house hunting was last summer, and I am not eager to begin the process again until we are completely ready. We were totally jumping the gun last summer (not even having our house ready to sell), and have learned a few lessons. Next time around, we plan to be ready to buy with no contingencies once we find a house we want. I'm prepared to be patient and just live in the rent house for at least a year while we get all of those things in order. We can't buy a new house now and just pay two mortgages until our current house sells because the monthly mortgage on a new house will most likely be higher than what we will be paying in rent. Also, we may need to dip into our savings to be able to pay for both rent and mortgage (especially if our house takes several months to sell), and if we bought a new house, we would deplete our savings for the down payment. Finally, we need to sell our house before we'll really know what we can afford and how much we'll have for a down payment. It may be that we need to save up for another couple of years, and I am OK with living in the rent house until then. Saving money will be pretty impossible while we're paying both rent and mortgage, but should be easy once our house sells and we're only paying rent. Thank you to those that suggested daily check-ins at our old house. If we do move, I'll make a checklist that my husband (or one of our neighbors) can quickly run through each day. That will be easy for us since the rent house is only a few minutes away from our current house. The more I think about this idea, and the more I talk with my husband about it, the more I like the idea. It would certainly not be right for everyone, but I think it might be the right decision for us. Of course, this all depends on whether or not our friends get their new house and whether or not the landlord agrees to rent the house to us at the same rate. We will see! We should know something next week. :)

Stupidly long post with my free rental tips - don't read unless you are seriously considering real estate investment... I am going to give some insights on my process. I am not claiming to be a pro, here is what I will say. In my late 30's I was able to retire from working and go back to school, get a PhD and change careers. I now work from 9:00am to 12:00pm four days every week and I have that opportunity largely because of real estate investing. Many of my statements here will be normative, this is just my experience. Area selection - Probably the most important and most overlooked thing in real estate investing. Buy the school. Forget about the deal you get on the house and forget about your monthly rental incomes, what matters most in real estate investing are the elementary, middle and high schools. Good schools get good renters, good renters reduce maintenance and hassle. In general, I want neighborhoods built in the 60's, 70's and 80's that are tucked into odd enclaves near busy areas. Usually these were old neighborhoods built for lower middle class blue collar workers that are positioned too close to a thoroughfare for high property values but still in the same general area as properties that are valuable. Stay out of bad neighborhoods no matter how good the deal seems. I have really been sued twice, both into six figures, both time insurance abandoned me, and both times the properties were in depressed areas. Property selection - I avoid foreclosures like the plague, they are too big a gamble and too hard to properly capitalize. Buy houses that are dated but well kept, even at a slight premium - it is a devil you know type thing. The second reason I avoid foreclosures is my version of efficient market hypothesis applied to a different market. Remember every time you win a foreclosure auction as an investor it is because you paid what all the other investors thought was too much. As a small time landlord you are competing with guys who know about the property before you, who have run Net Present Value analysis and ROI's and decided to pass. The perfect house for making good steady income, while maintaining property values is a 3 bedroom ranch on a crawlspace, with no signs of neglect or water damage that has one or two broken big ticket item (roof or furnace) and is priced accordingly. I prefer properties that are $70,000 - $80,000 that need $10,000 to $20,000 of work. Rents - Probably the least important thing in real estate investing. Too many people focus on the rent they will get while completely missing the idea of comprehensive income. Your success in real estate is determined by a simple formula (rent received + fair value of home) - (expenditures paid + price paid for home). My biggest problem with Weedy's 2% above is that life doesn't live in percentages. One problem being that maintenance is a mixed cost and a large percentage of the cost doesn't depend on the amount of the rent. For example, a small furnace and AC is $5,000 installed while a larger furnace and AC is $5,800. Also the capitalization problem comes in - assuming $300 per month in maintenance on a $100,000 upscale rental unit and leveraging them to buy four units will bring in positive rental only cash flows of about $1,902 per month (assuming $1,250 monthly rent and $300 monthly maintenance). While buying three foreclosures at $14,000 and putting $19,000 in them will get you about $1,265 (assuming $700 rent and $225 per month in maintenance). Most of this is due to the trouble of meaningful mortgages on foreclosures. Loans and Rentals - A real estate investment is not the same thing as a home investment, anymore than a semi truck is the same thing as a station wagon. In a home the risk is that you will lose income and have nothing to make your payments. Properly maintained rental homes do not run that same risk. There is little risk that you can't rent the home, in fact, there is very little risk that you can't rent the home for a profit. There is some risk that you are not going to make enough money to make it worth your while. A $100,000 unit with 20% down will have a payment plus taxes and insurance of $540, and you can typically get away with $200 of maintenance if you do some work yourself. This means that you will be in positive cash flows if you can rent a $1,200 per month home at $750. But even if you can't you are not really in the losing money range until your monthly rent collections go below $500 per month. As a hint - It is pretty hard not to get at least $1,000 out of a $1,200 per month unit, crazy hard to not get at least $750 and nearly impossible not to get $500. Discipline - Real estate investing is about making no money for a time so that suddenly you can make a lot of money. I could talk about NPV analysis, and ROI and all kinds of other risk versus reward stuff but really it is not important. Real estate investing is about borrowing money and getting other people to pay it back for you, and not keeping a single dime of it until you have accumulated 5 properties.

Interesting to see this thread again! I read over the responses and see this was when we had lost our first renters. We had an absolutely wonderful family after that - BEST RENTERS EVER - and no problems whatsoever. It probably is in part due to the fact they had owned a home for several years and were looking to move to a specific area and having a very hard time finding a home. Our rental house was close to a direct path to the husband's workplace. I think because of them owning a home, they were very mindful of our they treated our house. My dad enjoy seeing them out and about. They moved out end of November. We are planning to sell the house soon. We have a little touch-up painting and a couple of rooms that will need to be repainted (they home-schooled in one room). This past year we put in a new heat/air system. Rental money is in an account and has not been used as income. It's not a huge profit at this point, but it has been a help on our taxes! Here's hoping to a nice profit when we sell!!