Done Being a Landlord? Sell Your Rental — Tenants and All

Why Tampa Bay landlords are calling it quits

Most of the rentals we see in Pinellas County are 1950s to 1970s concrete block houses in Lealman, Pinellas Park, Largo, Gulfport and south St. Petersburg, or small 1920s frame houses near downtown. They were bought ten or twenty years ago when the numbers were easy. The numbers are not easy anymore.

• Insurance. Landlord policies on older houses have gone up sharply, and carriers commonly want a four-point inspection of the roof, electrical, plumbing and HVAC before they will write or renew. A 20-year-old shingle roof, a Federal Pacific panel or cast-iron drain lines can mean a non-renewal letter.
• Property taxes. A rental does not get the homestead cap. Non-homestead property can be reassessed up to 10 percent a year under Fla. Stat. § 193.1554, and it resets to full just value the January after it changes hands, so a long-held rental that was cheap to carry is not cheap for the next owner either.
• Deferred maintenance. The list grows: a roof, a re-pipe, windows, a sewer line, a dead AC in August. Each one is a month of rent or more, and tenants do not pay extra for them.
• Tenants. Late rent, a unit that smells of smoke, a boyfriend who moved in, a tenant who stopped paying after the lease ended. Chapter 83 gives you a process, but the process takes time and money you may not want to spend.
• Life. You moved out of state, you retired, you inherited the place from a parent who managed it by hand, or you just do not want the 2 a.m. phone calls anymore.

None of this makes you a bad landlord. It makes you a person whose rental stopped being passive. Selling to a buyer who wants the rental as it is, tenants and all, is usually the simplest way out.

Selling with tenants in place

You do not need to empty the house to sell it, and you do not need the tenant's permission. In Florida the lease goes with the property. We step in as landlord at closing, honor the lease to its end date, and the tenant keeps paying rent, just to a different address.

• Month-to-month tenants. Either side can end a month-to-month tenancy with 30 days' written notice before the end of a monthly period (Fla. Stat. § 83.57, as amended in 2023). You do not have to give that notice to sell. If a tenant needs to move after closing, we send the notice and handle what follows.
• Security deposits. Under Fla. Stat. § 83.49(7), when the property changes hands the deposits and any advance rent transfer to the new owner with an accounting for each tenant, and you are released once that is done and receipted. The title company credits the deposits to us at closing, and we become responsible for them.
• Rent. Rent is prorated at closing like taxes. You keep what you collected for the days you owned the house.
• The walkthrough. We need one 15 to 30 minute walkthrough. Entry to an occupied unit takes the tenant's consent or proper notice under Fla. Stat. § 83.53, and we will help you word the request so the visit is low-key.
• Non-paying or holdover tenants. We buy occupied houses as they are. Please do not change locks or shut off power before you sell. We handle lawful removal after closing, the same way we do with squatters and evictions already in progress.

One thing that changed in 2023: the rules are the same everywhere in Florida now. Chapter 2023-314 (HB 1417) created Fla. Stat. § 83.425, which preempts the regulation of residential tenancies and the landlord-tenant relationship to the state. Pinellas County's Tenant Bill of Rights is no longer in effect, and the similar local ordinances in Tampa and St. Petersburg were preempted or repealed along with it, so there is no local notice period or fee rule layered on top of Chapter 83.

Insurance, roof age and the house you cannot afford to fix

The insurance market is the single biggest reason older Pinellas rentals come to us. For policies issued or renewed since July 1, 2022, Fla. Stat. § 627.7011(5) says an insurer may not refuse to write or renew solely because of roof age if the roof is under 15 years old. Once the roof is 15 or older, the carrier can require an inspection at your expense, and it may decline if the roof does not have at least 5 years of useful life left. On a 1970s rental with a 2004 roof, that inspection is the difference between a renewal and a replacement bill you will never recover in rent.

We buy rentals with old roofs, cancelled policies, open permits and the full list of deferred work. We buy houses like these constantly, so we price the roof, the re-pipe and the panel into the offer and the work happens after closing, not before. You do not replace anything to sell. If the house is already uninsurable or the roof is the main problem, those pages go deeper.

Taxes when you sell a rental: a question for your CPA

A rental you have depreciated for years will usually have a taxable gain and depreciation recapture when you sell. Some landlords plan for the tax and move on. Others use a Section 1031 like-kind exchange to roll the proceeds into another investment property, often something with less work attached, like a newer house or a share of a larger building.

We do not give tax advice, and the exchange rules are strict. The IRS gives you 45 days from the sale to identify replacement property in writing and 180 days to close on it, the proceeds have to be held by a qualified intermediary rather than you, and the deadlines do not extend for hardship. If an exchange might make sense, talk to your CPA before you sign a contract, because the intermediary needs to be in place at closing. We can close on whatever date your exchange needs and give the intermediary everything they ask for.

Why a buyer who keeps rentals is the simplest exit

Listing a rental with an agent usually means waiting for the lease to end, turning the unit, painting, replacing the roof the inspector flags, then holding the house empty for showings. That is two to four months of lost rent and spending before you see a closing, and the retail buyer's lender still wants the roof and the four-point inspection to pass.

We are the end buyer. An occupied house with an old roof is a normal purchase for us, not a problem to be solved before closing. Our offer is the renovated value minus repairs, holding and resale costs and our margin, and we show you the math. If listing would net you more after the turnover and the repairs, we will tell you so on our compare page.

• $0 fees, $0 commissions, and we pay the normal closing costs.
• Written offer typically within 24 hours of the walkthrough.
• Close in as little as 7 to 14 days when title is clean, or on your date, including a date that works with a 1031 intermediary.

Related: Rental property with tenants · Eviction in progress · Bad roof · all situations we buy

We are a cash home buyer, not a law firm. This page is general information about Florida law and local process, not legal advice. For advice on your situation, talk to a Florida attorney — we work with several and are glad to make an introduction.