I'll mention this again. I tried to sell the house., twice, no luck. So that isn't happening.
The house was not originally bought to be a rental. It was my wife's house, before we got married obviously. Unable to sell it so we rented it out. Yes for three years or so we made enough in rent to cover the house payment. There was no money for repairs or other expenses, such as the huge dead tree we had to cut down in the back yard($2000). Yes for three frustrating years it was annoying if the renter called with a complaint.
2/26/13 Bank refinanced house when I threatened to give them the dead back because we could not sell the house nor were we making money from renting, just breaking even.
Refi $94,666 @ 4.125% 30 years
PMI 42.28
INS 41.08
P&I 458.80
TAXES 149
New payment 1/01/15 will be $691.11
Rent is $875 We have not increased rent since we rented to this one person.
Total in the rental account is $3,126.06 which includes her one month deposit and a $150 pet deposit.
Total owed today is $91,766.50
House appraised at $114k but never could sell it as I mentioned before.
What area is the house in?
Also, this:
Rental @ 1%, 114k value, 1140 rent, minimum range you should rent for, 925/m, Optimal sell value: 114k, realistic sell value range: 102,600-108,300, minimal sell value: 92,500, your valuation of the house: 87.5k.
Based on those numbers, you are looking at 161 ideally in profits, because of 1/8 of all rents going to repairs (A realistic number), and your overall costs being 691 (minus repairs). Total losses you are leaving on the table for not pricing at 1% is 265 USD, or 30% additional profits. An increase to the suggested minimum would increase your profits by 50 USD per month, roughly 5.7% respectively.
Best solution here is to slowly increase the rent per year, noting inflation as the cause for the increase, increasing by 35 if the current tenant reups soon (less than 2 years), up it by 50 initially, so you meet your 1% of current vested principal.
Once you get another tenant, again, increase by 35. Micro transactions are far easier to slide past consumers than larger increases, and it helps you to avoid any shock to their budget.