I've been on this forum for the past 17 years, but the time has come to say goodbye. We just sold our last place for an astonishing sum, and are happily anticipating no more hassles with maintenance and tenants.

I wanted to express my thanks to Jeffrey and Dot for hosting this forum, open to small operators like us and owners of multiple properties. The wealth of information has been so useful to us over the years.

Thanks also to the many who made valuable (and funny!) posts here about managing rental properties. We learned so much and avoided so many pitfalls by reading this forum daily for so long.

But we're getting older, and the rental market is changing so much for the worse around here, that we took the opportunity to cash in on what is still a phenomenal seller's market in our locality.

I'll check in once in a while for amusement and for general tips, but probably won't contribute.

Congratulations!

Before you go, can you give us an overview of your real estate career?

Lots of details!

Wishing you much success and enjoyment!

Curious... what's the next adventure look like?

I hear ya, loud and clear.

Say hello to Fred and the gang, over.

Congratulations on your retirement! I wish you all the best going forward! It's a long road that we get on when we choose to be a landlord. There are many curves and wrecks. When we make it to the point that we cash out or pass our little empires on to kids or a trust, we have earned our retirement. Best to you. Enjoy it.

Thanks for all of the kind comments! I re-read my post, and can see where someone like MMIT might have thought that we were big RE players. No, we were small operators who made a few really good decisions years ago and reaped the benefits of location-location-location.

I'll poke my nose in occasionally to see what's up, and chime in if I have any wisdom to share.

Next? Healing from hernia surgery right now, then a summer 40th anniversary trip to the Canadian Maritimes (PEI, Nova Scotia, etc.) AND NO CALLS ABOUT LEAKY PIPES!!!!

The best is yet to come! Just curious where you invested instead of real estate?

Yipeeee!!!! Congratulations on a job well done!

The end of a successful RE career is when you can close it out on your own terms.

For those curious about our plans, we are giving ourselves time. We will temporarily park

whatever is left after paying PA and the IRS in our brokerage money market account. Next is moving hubby's mom to personal care, a large undertaking. Then, looking for a property that would work for us until our mobility gets troublesome, probably one that has/can have an ADU so that our eldest can live on the property for a while and eventually possibly buy us out when we need Assisted Living,maybe 10 years down the road (her idea,and we think it would work).

This is all very tentative, and what is best for us isn't best for all by a long shot. There may even be a 1031 exchange if the right property turns up before the April closing, but the market is sparse and overpriced here currently.

Hey Wilma, Congrats on your retirement! We wish you both all the best life has to offer!

Congrats Wilma!

Glad to hear you are exiting on a positive high note,

and headed to your next adventure!

Nobody has to do this forever!

Congrats Wilma!

Glad to hear you are exiting on a positive high note,

and headed to your next adventure!

Nobody has to do this forever!

Oreo, interesting thought, but we are campers, and love the flexibility that our rig gives us to visit new places here in the US and Canada.

I am just now beginning to consider my exit strategy (maybe). For one thing, I carried a couple of 80lb bags of mortar today and they seemed much heavier than they did several years ago. Also, here in Philly the Socialist city council thinks that the way to improve the supply of rental housing is to attack landlords with one tripwire regulation after another, and the penalty for any and all violations is that you have no right to collect even a dollar of rent. No matter how minor, even a completely technical violation that had no effect on the rental means that the tenant gets a free ride.