To sell or not to sell

steinbock123

My daughter came home from abroad, where she had lived for approx. six years in rental accommodation, to get married. This was 2014. I bought a two bedroomed apartment as an investment, the idea being that she and her other half could live there while they were saving for their own house. My thinking was that once they had bought their own place, I could then rent out the apartment and have a bit of an income in my retirement, which is less than two years away now. The apartment itself is in a small quiet development of only 12 units, with only 3 of them being two-bedroomed, one in each block. It's an easy commute to Dublin, I live in the same village and commute myself. One of the two-bedroomed units in another block recently sold for €45K above what I paid. My unit has been completely modernised, whereas the one that sold had nothing done to it (not even paint) since it was built in the early eighties, so if I sell I will definitely make a profit. My daughter has just bought a house, it's a fixer-upper, so they won't be moving in realistically until possibly late March/April.
My dilemma is this.When I bought this apartment, the housing crisis as we now know it, was not in the news as it is now. The law didn't seem to be as skewed against landlords as it is now, with councils and housing charities advising tenants to overhold, withhold rent etc. By what I've read on Boards and elsewhere, If I let the place and get a bad tenant they can just stop paying rent and it could take up to two years and a lot my hard-earned to get them out, on top of which they could wreck the place as well. I just couldn't be arsed with that sort of hassle.
On the other hand I could get excellent tenants and not have the slightest hassle, and might get a little more capital appreciation, but not much methinks, there's kind of a ceiling price for apartments in this location, no matter how nice they are. And I know there would be a queue of prospective tenants for this particular property.
So do I sell when my daughter moves out shortly or do I rent ?? I certainly won't lose money if I sell now, even with having to pay CGT, I would like to have an income from it in the future though, so what way do you Boardsies see things going in the short to medium term? Sell or hold ??

Cuddlesworth

This is just risk management.

The first question to ask yourself is, can you afford to pay 20-40k in damages plus at least 1 years lost rental income no matter the chance? If you can't, then the answer is sell.

The chance of it happening is pretty low(I know/knew a lot of landlords), especially if you rent to people who work(you can recover the money via courts), charge large deposits, vet tenants properly(google names for court PRTB cases, facebook, check passports to confirm identity etc). The more work you do to mitigate the above happening, the less likely it becomes.

The second question is, if the money is worth your while? Compared to ROI on other investment models and coupled with your time or expenses you will need to invest into it. Nightmare tenants aside, some of them are just a pain in the ass to deal with and take a lot of time.

At the end of the day, it really depends on what you want to do. Everybody's situation is different.

4ensic15

If you are nervy about it, sell! Rogue tenants can pick up on weakness and exploit it. You are near retirement and are far too old for the kind of messing involved in letting property. You should get on with enjoying retirement not getting into hassle.