I have never been interested in real estate. The few landlords I know may just be bad at it, but they seem to have lots of problems with tenants, HOAs, maintenance, etc. Now my ignorance is coming back to bite me.
My mom is in a terrible place and is going to move soon. She moved to a bad area to take care of her parents for the last few years of their lives, and it drained her financially, physically, and emotionally. I don't feel like going into a lot of detail unless it's necessary, but my partner and I have decided that the only viable option is for us to purchase a house nearby and have her live there as a tenant. She is unable to get a mortgage. My goal is first and foremost to give her a nice (but not expensive!) place to live in a safe neighborhood. After that I'd like to try to come as close as I can to breaking even with her rent covering our expenses. However, I'd rather come up short a few hundred dollars per month rather than try to make any profit on the situation. My mom has selflessly taken care of others in the family and got me through some really hard times, and now that I'm very comfortable financially I can think of nowhere I would get a better "return" on my money than helping her out when she's in need. I think I've worked out the money aspect - there are reasonably priced homes and she can cover enough rent to make us come out roughly even.
Ok - enough with the introduction. I wanted to set the stage with that because I'm not looking for advice on how to maximize my profit, but rather just looking for some basics on the mechanics of being a landlord. I have read some basic information on being a landlord, but most of what I've read has been focused on the finances, finding tenants, background checks, finding very low-priced houses to maximize return, etc. What I haven't found is what do I do about insurance? I assume just talk to my current insurance provider. Are there any things I need to pay attention to for the loan, since it will be a rental property? What liability am I taking on?
I don't even know what questions to ask because I don't even know what I don't know. If there are any good beginner tutorials for someone in this situation, please let me know.
Thanks.