How to Rent Out Your House (Checklist)

Before you list: three permissions to check

Your mortgage

Many mortgages on a primary residence, including FHA loans and most conventional ones, require you to live in the home for at least 12 months after closing. Renting it out sooner can break that promise. After the occupancy period, most standard mortgages don’t require you to tell the lender, but the insurance has to change and the lender stays on the policy.

If you’re planning to refinance later, know that a loan on a rental usually carries a higher rate than one on a home you live in.

Your HOA

Condo and HOA documents can ban rentals, cap how many units can be rented at once, set minimum lease terms (often 6 or 12 months) or require you to register tenants. Read the declaration and rules, and ask the management company if anything is unclear. A rental cap with a waiting list can stop the whole plan.

Your city or county

Many cities require rental registration, a business license or a safety inspection. Some states leave this entirely to local governments; in Colorado, Denver and Boulder require rental licensing and inspections. Check your city’s website before you list. Fines for renting without a required license can be steep, and in some places an unlicensed landlord has trouble enforcing the lease in court.

What the numbers look like

Say your house would rent for $1,650 a month. That’s $19,800 a year if it never sits empty. Before you count that as income, list what comes out of it:

• Mortgage, property tax and insurance. Your landlord policy will likely cost around 15-25% more than your homeowners policy did. In Ohio, for example, our estimate for a landlord policy is $2,390 to $2,600 a year on the benchmark house; a smaller house usually costs less.
• Repairs and maintenance. A common rule of thumb is about 1% of the home’s value a year. On a $250,000 house, that’s $2,500.
• Vacancy. One empty month is $1,650, or about 8.3% of the year’s rent.
• Software. $0 on a free plan; RentRedi’s annual plan is $144 a year.
• Management, if you hire it. Managers typically charge 8-12% of collected rent; at 10%, that’s $165 a month.

If the rent doesn’t cover the costs with some margin, that’s worth knowing before you sign a lease that’s hard to undo.

Setting the rent

Look at current listings, not last year’s. Match bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, parking, laundry and pet policy, and stay within a mile or two. Zillow, Apartments.com and Realtor.com rental listings are all public.

Price at or a little below the middle of the range if you want to fill the house quickly. A $50 discount costs $600 over a year. One extra month empty costs $1,650. Most landlords who start high end up cutting the price anyway after a few weeks of silence.

Check your state’s rent rules too. A handful of states have statewide rent caps (California’s AB 1482 is one), and some cities have their own rent control.

Getting the house rent-ready

• Safety first. Working smoke alarms on every level and in or near bedrooms, carbon monoxide alarms near sleeping areas if you have gas appliances or an attached garage, secure stair railings and working locks on doors and windows.
• Re-key the locks. Former contractors, house sitters and neighbors may have keys.
• Lead paint disclosure. For housing built before 1978, federal law requires you to give tenants the EPA lead hazard pamphlet and a disclosure form listing any known lead paint before they sign.
• Clean, paint and repair. Fix small things now. A dripping faucet in the listing photos costs you applicants.
• Remove personal items and anything you don’t want a tenant using.
• Decide on utilities. Choose which ones you’ll pay and which the tenant puts in their name, and say so in the listing.

Screening without breaking the law

Write your criteria down before you list: minimum income (many landlords use about 3 times the rent, so $4,950 a month for a $1,650 house), credit and rental history standards, and occupancy limits. Then apply them to every applicant in the same order.

Two federal laws apply even if you own one house:

• The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires the applicant’s written consent before you pull a report, and an adverse action notice if anything in it leads you to deny, ask for a cosigner or charge a higher deposit.
• The Fair Housing Act bans decisions based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status or disability. HUD withdrew its 2016 guidance on criminal records in 2025, but courts still hear disparate-impact claims under the Act, and a blanket ban on applicants with any record invites one; look at the nature, seriousness and age of an offense instead.

Many states and cities also ban refusing tenants because they pay with a housing voucher or other lawful income. Check yours before you write “no Section 8” anywhere.

Applicants usually pay for their own screening report. TurboTenant charges $55 on its free plan, RentRedi $39.99, and Avail $55 for its credit, criminal and eviction bundle.

The lease, the deposit and move-in

Use a lease written for your state. Notice periods, deposit limits, entry rules and late fee rules all vary, and a generic lease can contain terms your state won’t enforce.

Security deposit rules vary widely. Alabama caps deposits at one month’s rent and gives you 60 days to return them with an itemized list. California capped most deposits at one month’s rent from July 2024. Arizona gives landlords only 14 business days to return a deposit. Look up your state before you collect a dollar.

At move-in, walk the house with the tenant, fill out a condition checklist and take dated photos of every room. California has required dated move-in photos since July 1, 2025 to support deposit deductions. Those photos are your evidence when the deposit question comes up at move-out.

Taxes and the home-sale exclusion

Rental income goes on Schedule E. You can deduct mortgage interest, property tax, insurance, repairs, software and management fees, and you depreciate the building (not the land) over 27.5 years.

One timing issue catches people. The federal exclusion of up to $250,000 of gain ($500,000 for married couples filing jointly) on the sale of a main home requires that you owned and lived in it for at least 2 of the 5 years before the sale. Rent the house out for more than about 3 years and you lose it. Depreciation you claimed while renting is taxed when you sell, even if the exclusion applies. This is general information, not tax advice; talk to a tax preparer before your first rental tax year.

Self-manage or hire a manager

With one house nearby and some evenings free, most owners can self-manage with a free app for listing, screening and rent. A property manager typically charges 8-12% of collected rent plus a leasing fee each time they place a tenant. If you live far away, don’t want the calls, or own a house in a city with complex tenant rules, that fee can be worth it. A middle ground is a one-time tenant placement service: TurboTenant charges $1,500 for placement only, and Hemlane’s placement starts at $695.