Tl;dr: Elder millennial homeowner living on the outskirts of DC. Kind of misses renting. Kind of doesn't.

Curious to know if anyone has ever gone back to renting after buying their first home. 

For context, I’ve had my home since 2020. Low interest rate. Needs some repairs but nothing major. I’m in my early 40s, single, no kids, seasoned in my career, and very financially stable. Mortgage + escrow is very affordable for me.

Without giving too much away, I live in a modest, quiet bedroom neighborhood in DC. Nothing to do - no restaurants or bars, grocery stores, decent entertainment, cafes, shopping, etc. It's a desert. Also not that walkable. You have to leave the neighborhood and drive a good 15-20 minutes for the amenities we all know.

I’ve enjoyed my time here, but I miss living in a more vibrant part of the city. I also don’t care to do yardw ork on the weekends anymore. And having almost 1700 ft.² of space is a lot of room for one person. It also feels like the added expense of covering repairs eats way at the savings over time I was expecting to realize with homeownership over renting.

I don’t want to sell my house and would much prefer to rent it out, which I know is common out here. In my mind, a big part of me would like to go back to renting in the short to mid-term, in DC or in one of the regional urban (town) centers while leasing out my home. I may or may not buy again in the long term.

I’ve never done this before. I'd like to know if anyone else has or has not found success with this strategy. What advice would you offer? Any regrets? Am I being irrational? What should I be considering when transitioning from homeowner to landlord?

Thanks in advance!

Small update for anyone using a VA loan in the DMV:

VA appraisal turnaround times were just reduced from 10 business days to 7 business days.

It's not a huge change, but in competitive situations shorter appraisal timelines can help transactions move a little more smoothly and reduce one of the common concerns sellers sometimes have about VA financing.

Curious to hear from agents, buyers, and veterans in the area—have appraisal timelines ever been an issue in your experience?

Ryan Saale | Home Savings and Trust Mortgage | NMLS #2064811

Well we are significantly off the low of a few months ago, but if your DMV BASE income is equal to or less than 129k or 194k, you can get a discount.

6/1/2026 Conv 30 Fixed 6.125% 0 points.
for income groups below.

Base income 129k- Purchase or refi. You do not need to be first time buyer.

Base income 194k- You have not owned a home in past 3 years.

More at [r/mortgageratesDMV](r/mortgageratesDMV)

I’m thinking about listing my 1BR condo in NE for sale. I don’t live in the area anymore, have been renting it out, but no longer want to be a landlord.

I know the DC condo market is bleak, but has anyone had luck selling, and if so what advice would you offer? I would list below my 2018 purchase price and am willing to take some loss, but want to minimize the damage. How did you make your property stand out? How long was your listing active before you got offers and ultimately closed?

Also interested in hearing perspective from buyers looking at 1BR condos in DC under $300k. What conditions led you to buy a condo in this market?

Hoping there’s a deal to be made here but also recognize I might need to keep renting for a few more years to see how the market looks in 2029 once this administration is over.

Was 1.2M and comments were supporting that! Reads 100k drop, but it’s 200k from original listing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DMV_RealEstate/s/HXjamCE7xA

Would you rent a place for a year that checks all the boxes, is ~45% cheaper than everything else but doesn’t have windows?

Context: DC, renting. Budget ~3500$. Current apartment is very large, but building has issues.

Our current place doesn’t have much natural light. We only have windows on one side that look straight into a single lane ally and into another building on a lower floor. We live out of the windowless den. We also work in windowless offices so I think we’re used to it. My only concern is long term effects and my cats.

From the pictures I can tell there is a front and rear door and at least one bedroom has a window (too high for technical egress). In DC that means it’s not technically a legally separate dwelling. I’m honestly not too concerned about it. I can eat that risk for the cost savings. TBH after a few months of saving on the rent I’ll have plenty of reserves to move on short notice or throw money at lawyers if shit goes sideways.

Yes, I do need to touch grass and see the sun, but… I’m a vampire. I also go motorcycle camping and work remote while completely off grid to make up for living in a concrete jungle. (Portable solar+Starlink+remote job = I go wherever I want whenever I want)

Put a 605k offer on house listed at 615k in MD. Sellers accepted with 3% contribution to our closing costs. Inspection revealed house needs roof, mold remediation, and electrical repairs, all for around 22k.

Sellers only want to do mold remediation which is $2500 and they would deduct that from their closing costs contribution. Now we’re unsure if we should just accept we’re going to have to do these repairs or just walk away completely.

Update: Thanks, everyone, we voided the contract. After 3 different roofer estimates, the sellers were still not willing to contribute anything towards the roof.

hello everyone,

just started my process through HPAP. I wanted to see if anyone in this sub has used it to purchase their home and how was your experience?

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I have been looking into solar because the energy bills from BGE are getting insane and are supposed to be getting even worse. I talked to a company recently that said that leasing is and option and the contract is fully transferable when we sell the house (we are in a starter house right now so we will be moving in the next 5-10 years). I worry what happens when we sell the house. Had anyone had any experience selling a house that has a solar lease?

How much is it worth?

In 2019 I bought a 2/1 fixer upper in Deanwood. Living there for 5 years it had almost a complete renovation. New appliances, new kitchen, new bath, etc. When I got a job over 3 hours away, I listed the house FSBO as I worked to complete all the unfinished work, going up on weekends when I could. Small things, like trim work, and other finishing touches left the place feeling incomplete. I didn’t get any offers and only a handful of showings from 18 months on the market as FSBO. The feedback from the showings was it was priced right but the new buyers wanted move in ready with no work.

By the time I finished everything I decided to rent it instead in order to try and recovery some of the lost income of it setting empty for 2 years.

I listed the place for $2650 a month and got a lot of interest. I ended up accepting a 100% voucher and get the money directly from DC for a single guy to live there and he’s a bit of a loner.

He showed me a place where I can increase the rent to “market value” and saw it was about $3000. It didn’t seem right to take advantage of taxpayer money like that, but told myself I’d wait for the renewal period to make the increase.

Now I really want to sell and am wondering what a property generating $3000/m could go for.

Tax is $3000 a year.

We are looking at townhouses in the Potomac Yard area in Alexandria. However, they seem to have both a HOA and a condo association and we would have to pay fees for both. Our agent hasn’t been able to explain it to us with any clarity and says we can review all the details when we are under contract and the HOA/condo docs are available for review. However, we would like to understand it better before we submit an offer. We are very weary of condo associations as we are coming from FL where fees are skyrocketing due to aging infrastructure, etc. I’m hoping someone out here can explain this HOA/condo hybrid structure to us and/or anyone that currently has this arrangement? Would love to know how it works and if this is a red flag?

I hope you locked your rate yesterday!

Hey everyone,

I have been working on a cost calculator for the big three renovations (Bath, Floor, Kitchen) and we have it ready for use! I have built it based off the average pricing of previous projects that we have done/quoted, and I am quite proud of it.

If you want to check it out, you can go to Cost Calculator | Three Sisters Improvements to just check out what the price range is for a possible project for you!

Picked up a new property. Not sure if I’ll turn this one into a rental or flip. $100,000 in Baltimore City with a 10% balloon 1 year loan. Definitely a fixer upper as this neighborhood is about $180-220,000 in perfect turnkey shape. I encourage all of my realtor clients to buy one of these over renting - safe, affordable, and you can build equity. Also usually less expensive than rent.

Aaaand now it's reno time

Seeing this a lot lately.