There are several situations where you might want to rent. Hopefully you will never need to use one of them.
Upside Down
We will get the bad one out of the way first, but it can be a lifesaver if you need it. In 2007 and 2008 when the market turned down fairly quickly it caught a lot of people flat footed. Rehabbers who had bought places to fix up and sell found that by the time they had finished the rehab, the value of the house was close to the mortgages on it or even less than the mortgages. If they wanted to sell it, they were going to have to come up with money out of their own pocket. In other words, they were going to lose money on the project.
So, one solution to this is to take the hit and move on before the value decreases further. The other is to wait it out by renting it. The one problem is that by the time the market comes back, renters will have done enough wear and tear that you will need to do at least a minor rehab again.
One thing you need to figure out is what are the rents in the area and will you be in a positive cash flow situation. If you borrowed from a hard money lender at a high interest rate, this might not be a good option. You will be losing money each month. And the problem there is that if the value of the house has gone down because of the market going down you won’t be able to refinance it with a bank at a reasonable rate to make it cash flow. You are kind of stuck.
Depending on where the property is located, you may want to investigate Section 8 which will be discussed in more detail in another entry.