If you're thinking about renting out your house instead of selling it, here is the whole process, step by step, and where a full-service manager takes it off your plate.
Serving Contra Costa, Alameda, Marin & Sonoma counties
Renting out a house comes down to six jobs: price it right, prepare it, market and show it, screen hard, paper the tenancy properly, and then run it month after month. Do them well and a good home rents quickly. Do them badly and the mistakes are expensive.
You can do all six yourself, or hand the whole list to a full-service manager. Below is how each step works and where we take over.
Marketing across Zillow and the major Bay Area platforms, full screening, the lease, and the move-in walkthrough. Every showing is hosted by us. No placement fee.
Mortgage, insurance, property taxes, HOA, and utilities, all paid from rental income. Nothing forwards to your inbox.
Repairs run through Bay Vista Construction, our CA-licensed general contractor. Optional for every owner, and the work is under warranty.
Rent collection, tenant communications, inspections, lease renewals at no fee, and move-in/out documentation. All logged in your owner portal.
Monthly statements, ACH deposits, and year-end 1099 preparation, all in your owner portal.
Custom-quoted per property. No leasing fee. No percentage of rent.
Everything downstream depends on the number. Price high and the home sits empty while you pay the bills; price right and good applicants compete for it. Start with a realistic rent estimate built from recent comparable rentals, not a ZIP-code average. Ours is free, arrives within one business day, and comes with no obligation.
Safe, clean, and functional is the legal floor: working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, secure locks, and everything habitable. Beyond that, small investments in paint, deep cleaning, and landscaping routinely pay for themselves in rent and tenant quality. Document the condition thoroughly before anyone moves in.
Good photos and the right platforms fill homes: Zillow and the major Bay Area rental sites are where tenants actually look. Then someone has to answer every inquiry and show the home. We host every showing in person: no lockboxes, no self-guided tours, and we meet every applicant.
Credit, verified income, rental history, and references, applied evenly to every applicant under fair-housing rules. Careful screening is what makes evictions rare. It is the single most valuable thing a professional manager does.
A California-compliant lease, the deposit capped correctly under AB 12, disclosures served, and a documented move-in inspection. Get the paperwork right at the start and every later step, from rent increases to the deposit refund, gets easier.
Rent collection, repairs, notices, renewals, statements: this is the part that doesn't end. It's also exactly what full service covers. We place the tenant, pay every property bill from rental income, handle repairs through our own construction company, and deposit the balance by ACH. You decide how hands-on to be.
Start with the number: your free rent estimate
Get my free rent estimateBay Vista owners, in their own words, from our public Google reviews.
Request a free rent estimate for your house. You'll hear from us the same day with what it should rent for in today's market, plus a custom owner plan showing how we take the whole list off your plate. No commitment.
Free, no obligation · Takes 60 seconds · Same-day response, from a person