A Recent Story of How We Helped a Retiring Landlord Sell a Rental With a Tenant Still Living There
This isn’t a how-to guide. It’s the story of a real homeowner in Zion, Illinois we worked with this year. We’ve kept her details private, but we’re sharing what happened because a lot of landlords are stuck in a situation like hers and don’t know they have options.
Where She Was When She Called Us
She inherited a small three-bedroom house in Zion from her parents and had been renting it out for years. Same tenant the whole time. He paid his rent, he took care of the yard, and nobody had any complaints.
Now she was ready to retire and start selling off her rental properties. She wasn’t in a rush. She just wanted it done right, without a lot of headaches.
There were two catches. The house needed work: an old roof, worn-out flooring, and a dated kitchen and bathroom. And her tenant was still living there. He didn’t even know she was thinking about selling.
She got a letter from us in the mail and called. We answered right away, and she was working with Jacob, one of our home buying specialists, that same day.
A Cash Offer Wasn’t Her Best Option
Most “we buy houses” companies see a tenant-occupied house that needs a new roof and make one low cash offer. A tenant is a problem to them, and they knock the price down to cover it. We got her a cash offer number, and so did a couple of competitors. None of them came close to what she needed.
Jacob laid out her real options instead. A cash sale is a good fit for some sellers, but he told her straight up that it wasn’t the way to get her the most money. She had a price she wasn’t willing to go below, and no cash offer on the table was going to reach it.
So he walked her through our Full Service Program. We find the right end buyer for the house and handle the whole sale ourselves. That means the photos, the showings, the paperwork, and dealing with the tenant. She pays no realtor fees. Through that program, Jacob got her a price above the number she’d told him she needed.
She said yes on that first call.
Then the Problems Showed Up
The original plan was simple: sell the house to another landlord and let the tenant stay right where he was. That’s not how it went.
Problem one: bad timing for the tenant. Right after she told him about the sale, he had surgery. He couldn’t mow, couldn’t clean, and spent time in and out of the hospital while we were getting the house ready.
Problem two: the house was full. His family had been using the house as extra storage for years. Before we could get good photos or show it to buyers, there was a lot of stuff to work around, and he wasn’t in any shape to move it himself.
Problem three: the buyer needed it empty. Once we started marketing the house, we found a buyer fast. But that buyer needed the house vacant at closing. Now the tenant had to move out, and he had no plan, no new place lined up, and money was tight while he recovered.
A lot of companies would have handed this back to the owner and said “you need to evict him.” She would have been stuck paying for a lawyer, waiting on the courts, and dealing with a long-time tenant she’d never had a problem with. The sale probably would have fallen apart in the meantime.
What We Did
We didn’t evict him. We moved him.
Patrick, our transaction manager, worked with the tenant directly from start to finish, so she never had to have the hard conversations herself. Patrick worked around the tenant’s doctor appointments. We rented him a storage unit for the things he wanted to keep, hired professional movers, brought in a dumpster for everything else, and helped him find his next place to live.
When she texted Patrick to ask what any of this would cost her, his answer was simple: nothing. It’s part of the Full Service Program.
We kept her in the loop the whole way. Any time she had a question, she got a straight answer that same day. She’s a hands-on owner, and she drove by the house a couple of times to check on it. She never had to wonder what was going on.
Once the tenant was moved out, our team handled the rest. That meant the final water reading, working with the title company, and explaining the closing paperwork in plain English. She signed everything electronically from home and never had to show up anywhere in person.
How It Ended
We closed, the money was wired straight to her account, and our team followed up to make sure it arrived. The tenant got settled into his new place, and he was happy with how it all went too.
Why We’re Sharing This
If you own a rental and you’re ready to sell, the tenant can feel like the biggest thing standing in your way. You don’t want to force out someone who’s always paid their rent. You don’t want to take a lowball offer just because somebody’s living there. And you definitely don’t want to spend your retirement managing a move that isn’t yours.
At Royal Real Estate Solutions, we’re the one call a landlord needs to make, no matter the situation.
- Need speed and simplicity? We can make a cash offer.
- Want top dollar without the hassle of a traditional listing? Our Full Service Program can get you more, and we handle the work.
- Got a tenant in the house, an inherited property, or repairs you can’t afford? That’s exactly the kind of situation we sort out, with care for everyone involved.
We’re local, based in Kenosha, and we work across southeastern Wisconsin and Lake County and McHenry County in Illinois.
If you own a rental in Zion, Waukegan, or anywhere in Lake County or McHenry County and you’re thinking about selling, give us a call at (262) 300-7400. We’ll tell you which option puts the most money in your pocket, even if it isn’t the one that’s easiest for us.