Done being a landlord? Sell the rental — tenants and all

Every landlord we buy from tells a version of the same story: the rental made sense ten years ago, and somewhere between the 2 a.m. water heater call, the tenant who stopped paying, and California's ever-thickening rulebook, it stopped being worth it. The good news is that being done is a decision you can make this week.

Yes, with the tenants still in it

This is the part that surprises tired landlords most: you don't have to get the tenants out to sell to us. We buy occupied rentals — good tenants, difficult tenants, tenants mid-eviction, tenants on expired leases. The lease and the security deposits transfer to us at closing and the tenants become our responsibility, including whatever notice and relocation rules apply. You never have to be the bad guy in your own eviction.

The deferred-maintenance spiral

Rentals age differently than owner-occupied homes. Ten years of tenant turnover and patch repairs adds up, and the classic landlord trap is a unit that needs $40,000 of work to justify market rent — money you'd rather not put into a property you're tired of. We price the house as it sits, work included in the math, and you skip the renovation you were dreading.

Know your rent-control picture

Statewide, AB 1482 caps annual increases and requires just cause for many terminations, and the City of Sacramento layers its own Tenant Protection Program on top for many rentals inside city limits — the city explains it at cityofsacramento.gov. None of this blocks a sale; it just shapes what the next owner can do, which is our problem after closing, not yours.

The 1031 question

Some landlords aren't done with real estate, just done with this property. A 1031 exchange into something newer or out of state defers the capital gains hit, and a fast, certain cash closing actually helps — exchange deadlines are unforgiving, and a buyer who closes on a fixed date makes the 45-day identification window less stressful. The IRS overview is at irs.gov. Your CPA runs the numbers; we hit the dates.