The cost of cleaning the house that we rented far exceeds the security deposit. Should we bother?
"I am surprised at the amount of work this contract wants done.  I'd question if it's even legal given the high costs.  I suspect it's only there to remind abusive tenants of responsibilities they already have in law for extraordinary abuse beyond ordinary wear-and-tear: they are already on the hook to repaint if they trash the paint (think: child writing on walls, happens a lot), and already need to fumigate (and a lot more) if they are a filth-type hoarder who brings in a serious infestation (happens a lot).  The landlord can already go after these people for additional money beyond the deposit.   But that's not you.  So don't freak out about those clauses, until you talk to the landlord and see what he's really after.  Almost certainly, he really wants a ""fit and ready to rent"" unit upon your departure, so he doesn't have to take the unit off the market for months fixing it.  As long as that's done, there's no reasonable reason for further work -- a decent landlord wouldn't require that.  Nor would a court, IMO.  The trouble with living in a place for awhile is you become blind to its deficiencies.  What's more, it's rather difficult to ""size up"" a unit as ready when it's still occupied by your stuff.  A unit will look rather different when reduced to a bare room, without furniture and whatnot distracting you.  Add to it a dose of vanity and it becomes hard to convince yourself of defects others will easily see.  So, tread carefully here.  If push comes to shove, first stop is whether it's even legal.   Cities and states with heavy tenant populations tend to have much more detailed laws, and as a rule, they favor the tenant.   Right off the bat, in most states the tenant is not responsible for ordinary wear-and-tear.  In my opinion, 6 years of ordinary, exempt wear would justify a repaint, so that shouldn't be on the tenant at all.  As for the fumigation, I'm not in Florida so I don't know the deal, maybe there's some special environmental issue there which somehow makes that reasonable, it sure wouldn't fly in CA.  Again that assumes you're a reasonable prudent tenant, not a slob or hoarder.  As for the pro carpet cleaning, that's par for the course in any of the tough rent control areas I've seen, so that's gotten a pass from the legislators.  Though $600 seems awfully high.  Other than that, you can argue the terms are ""unconscionable"" -- too much of a raw deal to even be fair.  However, this will depend on the opinion of a judge. Hit or miss.  I'm hoping your landlord will be happy to negotiate based on the good condition of the unit (which he may not know; landlords rarely visit tenant units unless they really need to.) You certainly should make the case that you make here; that the work is not really needed and it's prohibitive.  Your best defense against unconscionable deals is don't sign them.  Remember, you didn't know the guy when you initially signed... the now-objectionable language should have been a big red flag back then, saying this guy is epic evil, run screaming. (even if that turned out not to be true, you should't have hung around to find out.)  You may have gotten lucky this time, but don't make that mistake again.  Unless one of the above pans out, though... a deal is a deal.  You gave your word.  The powerful act here is to keep your word.  Forgive me for getting ontological, but successful people say it creates success for them.  And here's the thing. You have to read your contracts because you can't keep your word if you don't know what word you gave.  It's a common mistake: thinking good business is trust, hope, faith, submission or giving your all.  No.   In business, you take the time to hammer out mutually beneficial (win-win) agreements, and you set them on paper to eliminate confusion, argument and stress in the future as memories fade and conditions change.  That conflict resolution is how business partners remain friends, or at least professional colleagues."
&gt; In many cases we are actually wasting energy by first burning coal to generate electricity, only to convert it back to heat again.  Yes and no.  Thermodynamically, you are correct in some cases.  What we gain, nowadays, with electricity generation is lower distribution costs and flexibility.  The value of that far exceeds the cost of any thermodynamic losses.  If it didn't, we wouldn't be using it quite as extensively. "For the vast majority, ""buying"" a house via a mortgage is not an investment.  I use quotes around buying because from a technical perspective you don't own anything until you've paid it off; this is often an important point that people forget. It's highly unlikely you'll make more on it than the amount you put into it (interest, repairs, etc).  Even with relatively low interest rates. The people who successfully invest in homes are those that use actual cash (not borrowed) to buy a home at well below market value.  They then clean it up and make enough repairs to make it marketable and sell it shortly there after.  Sometimes these people get hosed if the housing market tumbles to the point that the home is now worth less than the amount they put into it.  This is especially problematic if they used bank loans to get the process going.  They were actually the hardest hit when the housing bubble popped several years ago.  Well, them and the people who bought on interest only loans or had balloon payments. Whereas the people who use a mortgage are essentially treating it like a bank account with a negative interest rate.  For example, $180k loan on a 30 yr fixed at 4% will mean a total payout of around $310k, excluding normal repairs like roofs, carpet, etc.  Due to how mortgage's work, most of the interest is collected during the first half of the loan period.  So selling it within 2 to 5 years is usually problematic unless the local housing market has really skyrocketed. Housing markets move up and down all the time due to a hundred different things completely out of your control.  It might be a regional depression, weather events, failed large businesses, failed city/local governments, etc.  It could go up because businesses moved in, a new highway is built, state/local taxes decline, etc. My point is, homes are not long term investments.  They can be short term ones, but only in limited circumstances and there is a high degree of risk involved.  So don't let that be a driving point of your decision. Instead you need to focus on other factors.  Such as: what is really going on with the house you are currently in?  Why would they lose it?  Can you help out, and, should you help out?  If things are precarious, it might make more sense to sell that home now and everyone move into separate locations, possibly different rentals or apartments.  If they are foreclosed on then they will be in a world of financial hurt for a long time. If we ignore your parents situation, then one piece of advice I would give you is this: Rent the cheapest apartment you can find that is still a ""safe"" place to live in.  Put every dollar you can into some type of savings/investment that will actually grow.  Stay there for 5+ years, then go pay cash for a nice home.  Making $75k a year while single means that you don't need much to live on.  In other words, live extremely cheap now so you can enjoy a fantastic living experience later that is free from financial fear.  You should be able to put $30k+ per year aside going this route. edit: A bit of support data for those that somehow think buying a home on a mortgage is somehow a good investment:   Robert Shiller, who won a Nobel prize in economics and who predicted the bursting of the housing bubble, has shown that a house is not a good investment.  Why?  First, home prices (adjusted for inflation) have been virtually unchanged for the past 100 years.  (link 1, link 2)  Second, after you add in the costs of maintenance alone then those costs plus what you've paid for the home will exceed what you get out of it.  Adding in the cost of a mortgage could easily double or even triple the price you paid which makes things even worse.  Maintenance costs include things like a new roof, carpet/flooring, water heater, appliances, etc. Yes, a home might cost you $100k and you might sell it for $200k after 15 years.  However during that time you'll likely replace the roof ($10k to $20k), replace appliances ($2k to $5k), water heater ($1k), carpet/flooring ($5k to $20k), paint ($3k to $6k), and mortgage related costs (~$60k - assuming 30 yr fixed @4%).  So your ""costs"" are between $180k and $200k just on those items.  There are many more that could easily escalate the costs further.  Like a fence ($5k+), air conditioner ($5k+), windows, etc. The above is assuming the home actually appreciates in value faster than inflation: which they historically haven't over the long term.   So you have to consider all of the costs ultimately paid to purchase and maintain the home vs the costs of renting during the same time period.   Point is: do your research and be realistic about it.  Buying a home is a huge financial risk." The New York Times has a useful rent-vs-buy calculator.  Based on your numbers, it suggests buying makes sense if you stay in the house for 5 years or more.  This is just based on default values for various other parameters, though, like mortgage interest rate, rent increase rate, etc.  You could try playing around with the numbers.  Also as other answerers said, maintenance costs, closing costs, etc., should be factored in. If renting it out is a possibility even if you move out, it could be a better deal.  One thing to think about renting-wise is, if you move out, where are you likely to move to?  If you move far away, it could be impractical to manage the property as a rental.  You could hire someone else to do that, but that would reduce your income from the rent.  On the other hand, if you stay in LA, it could be feasible to manage the property yourself. Another key factor is, what rent would you be able to charge for this house?  If you can make enough in rent to cover the mortgage payment, you may be in good shape; but due to overpriced real estate markets, sometimes you won't be able to do that, which would mean renting it might not be cost-effective. You say  My work is steady; even if I lost my job it'd be easy to get another. Location has been static for a few years now, but I'm not sure that'll extrapolate to the future; I'm lazy, so I don't want to move, but for a significantly better job opportunity I wouldn't mind.   The general rule of thumb is that you'll come out ahead if you buy a house (with a mortgage) and live there for five years.  What you lose in interest, you make up in rent.  And living there for five years, you make back your closing costs in equity.  If you're there less than five years though, you don't make back the closing costs.  You'd have been better off renting.   Historically (up to about twenty years ago), your mortgage payment and rent payment for the same basic property would be about the same.  I.e. if your current landlord sold you what you are renting, your mortgage payment would be roughly the same as your rent.  Maybe a little lower or a little higher but about the same.  More recently, it hasn't been strange to see a divergence in those.  Now it is not uncommon for a mortgage payment to be 50% higher than rent on the same property.   This has some consequences.  First, your $1000 rent probably won't stretch as far as a $1000 mortgage payment.  So you'll be buying something that you'd only pay $650 or $700 rent.  Second, if you move and can't sell immediately, you'll get less in rent than you'd pay in mortgage.  Rather than contributing to your income, the property will require subsidy just to maintain the mortgage.  And in the early years of the mortgage, this means that you're paying all of the principal (equity) and some of the interest.   Buying a duplex makes this worse.  You have your side and their side.  You can substitute your $1000 rent for half of the mortgage payment.  Meanwhile, they are paying $700 in rent.  You have to subsidize the mortgage by $300.  Plus, you are talking about hiring a property management company to do things like lawn maintenance.  There goes another $100 a month.  So you are subsidizing the mortgage by $400.   I don't know real estate prices in Utah, but a quick search finds a median house price over $200,000.  So it seems unlikely that you are buying new construction with new appliances.  More likely you are buying an existing duplex with existing appliances.  What happens when they fail?  The renter doesn't pay for that.  The property management company doesn't pay for that (although they'll likely arrange for it to happen).  You pay for it.   Also, it often takes a bit of time to clean up the apartment after one tenant leaves before the new tenant starts paying rent.  That's a dead weight loss.  If this happens during a local recession, you could be carrying the mortgage on a property with no offsetting rental income for months.   There are some countervailing forces.  For example, if house prices in your area are increasing, the rent will increase with them (not necessarily at the same pace).  But your mortgage payment stays the same.  So eventually the rent may catch up with the mortgage payment.  If you wait long enough in a strong enough market, the rent on the other half of the duplex may cover the entire mortgage payment.   If you currently have an urban apartment within walking distance of work and switch to a suburban apartment with a commute, you have a better chance of finding a duplex where the entire mortgage payment is only the $1000 that you pay in rent.  Your half of the duplex won't be as nice as your apartment is, and you'll have a half hour or hour long commute every morning (and the same to get home in the evening).  But on strictly fiscal terms you'll be doing about as well.  Plus you have the income from the other half.  So even if your mortgage payment is more than your rent payment, you can still break even if the rent covers it.   Consider a $1400 mortgage and $400 in rent from the other half (after property management fees).  So long as nothing goes wrong, you break even.  Perhaps the agreement is that your parents take care of things going wrong (broken appliances, troublesome tenants, time between tenants).  Or perhaps you drain your emergency fund and adjust your 401(k) payment down to the minimum when that happens.  Once your emergency fund is replenished, restore the 401(k).   If you're willing to live in what's essentially a $500 apartment, you can do better this way.  Of course, you can also do better by living in a $500 apartment and banking the other $500 that you spend on rent.  Plus you now have the expenses of a commute and five hours less free time a week.   You describe yourself as essentially living paycheck to paycheck.  You have adequate savings but no building excess.  Whatever you get paid, you immediately turn around and spend.  Your parents may view you as profligate.  Your apartment is nicer than their early apartments were.  You go out more often.  You're not putting anything aside for later (except retirement).   It didn't use to be at all strange for people to move out of the city because they needed more space.  For the same rent they were paying in the city, they could buy a house in the suburbs.  Then they'd build up equity.  So long as they stayed in roughly the same work location, they didn't need to move until they were ready to upgrade their house.   The duplex plan leads to one of two things.  Either you sell the duplex and use the equity to buy a nicer regular house, or you move out of the duplex and rent your half.  Now you have a rental property providing income.  And if you saved enough for a down payment, you can still buy a regular house.   From your parents' perspective, encouraging you to buy a duplex may be the equivalent of asking you to cut back on spending.  Rather than reducing your 401(k) deposits, they may be envisioning you trading in your car for a cheaper one and trading in your nice but expensive apartment for something more reasonable in a cheaper neighborhood.  Rather than working with a property management company, you'll be out doing yardwork rather than cavorting with your friends.  And maybe the new place would have more space to share when you meet someone--you aren't going to provide many grandkids alone.   If you get a mortgage on a duplex, you are responsible for paying the mortgage.  You are responsible even if something happens to the house.  For example, if a fire burns it down or a tornado takes it away.  Or you just find that the house isn't solid enough to support that party where all of your friends are jumping up and down to the latest pop sensation.  So beyond losing whatever you invest in the property, you may also lose what you borrowed.   Now consider what happens if you invest the same amount of money in General Motors as in the house.  Let's call that $10,000 and give the house a value of $200,000.  With General Motors, even if they go bankrupt tomorrow, you're only out $10,000.  With the house, you're out $200,000.  Admittedly it's much hard to lose the entire $200,000 value of the house.  But even if the house loses $80,000 in value, you are still $70,000 in the hole.   You don't need a disaster for the house to lose $80,000 in value.  That's pretty much what happened in the 2006-2010 period.  People were losing all of what they invested in houses plus having to declare bankruptcy to get out of the excess debt.  Of course, if they had been able to hold on until 2015 markets mostly recovered.  But if you lost your job in 2008, they wouldn't let you not make mortgage payments until you got a new one in 2012.   When you declare bankruptcy, you don't just lose the house.  You also lose all your emergency savings and may lose some of your belongings.   There are some pretty prosaic disasters too.  For example, you and your tenant both go away for a weekend.  It rains heavily and your roof starts to leak due to weak maintenance (so not covered by insurance).  The house floods, destroying all the electronics and damaging various other things.  Bad enough if it's just you, but you're also responsible for the tenant's belongings.  They sue you for $20,000 and they move out.  So no rent and big expenses.  To get the house livable again is going to take $160,000.  Plus you have a $190,000 mortgage on a property that is only worth about $40,000.  That's at the extreme end. Also, bear in mind, you need to pay a deposit which is around the same price as a monthly payment. They will also need to do a credit history check on you and since you are a foreigner you won't have any. There are some renters who care less but mostly serious renters will require it. Some can require an employment confirmation or even a bank account details. It is very complicated and difficult for a foreigner.  As in comments mentioned, a contract is minimum 1 year. The deposit is returned when you leave and the place is left in good condition. I would not expect the full amount returned as many renters require a professional cleaning or some even repainting the walls. You can do it yourself and give them a receipt but you end up paying for it.  What I would suggest is some type of a sharing house where people share rooms in one house. But that option has negatives. Another option is hostels where you even share a room. It all depends on where you want to live. It is very different if you are in a big city like New York or somewhere in suburbs. The prices also vary. It's good to have friends in the USA that can help you especially if you aren't planning on staying too long. Rent should be nailed to costs + a pre-defined profit limit. Anything above the profit margin gets taxed away.  Instead, people are gouged of a good portion of their incomes while landlords make out like bandits.  Although I imagine the response to such a scheme would just be convoluted accounting tricks. Seems like a bad deal to me. But before I get to that, a couple of points on your expenses: Onward. You value a property by calculating its CAP rate. This is what you're calculating, except it does NOT include interest like you did -- that's a loan to you, and has no bearing on whether the unit itself is a good investment. It also includes estimations of variable expenses like maintenance and lack of income from vacancies. People argue vociferously on exactly how much to calculate for those. Maintenance will vary by age of the building and how damaging your tenets are. Vacancies vary based on how desirable the location is, how well you've done the maintenance, and how low the rent is. Doing the math based on your numbers, with just the fixed expenses: 8400 rent - 2400 management fee - 100 insurance = 5900/year income. 5900/150000 = 0.0393 = 3.9% CAP rate. And that's not even counting the variable expenses yet! So, what's a good CAP rate? Generally, 10% CAP rate is a good deal, and higher is a great deal. Below that you have to start to get cautious. Some places are worth a lower rate, for instance when the property is new and in a good location. You can do 8% on these. Below 6% CAP rate is usually a really bad investment.  So, unless you're confident you can at least double the rent right off the bat, this is a terrible deal. Another way to think about it You're looking to buy with your finances in just about the best position possible -- a huge down payment and really low interest. Plus you haven't accounted for maintenance, taxes (if any), and vacancies. And still you'd make only a measly 1.2% profit? Would you buy a bond that only pays out 1.2%? No? What about a bond that only pays 1.2%, but also from time to time can force YOU to pay into IT a much larger amount every month? "It depends on your situation. If your floor is broken, fix it. If you don't have $1,000 on hand, spend appropriately. It seems silly to be doing ROI calculations on the potential impact on resale value.  It's sillier to blow money frivolously, whether you do so with cash or credit. I'm assuming that if you have a broken linoleum floor that the kitchen isn't new, so it doesn't make sense to install your ""dream tile"" into the kitchen. Skip the imported travertine or wood and buy some nice linoleum and hire a handyman to put it in or install it yourself. You can probably do this for $500-700. If you have longer term plans for the kitchen, get them on paper and figure out what exactly you want to do and when you'll be able to do it."