The rental listings I have seem to be flying "off the shelves". It's a pretty dramatic contrast to what's going on with the houses listed for sale. Looking at the statistics overall, over half the rentals have been rented in less than 60 days during 2007. Contrast that with an average days on market for sale properties in Fauquier County of 162 right now.

I've argued before that the DOM (Days on Market) number understates how long properties are really taking to sell. But it works well enough for our purposes here in highlighting the fact that rentals are clearly moving better right now than sales.

So, my advice to all my sellers is that if you have the option of renting out your home and riding out the current market cycle, it makes sense. I recommend listing it as a sale and as a rental.

For what it's worth, all real estate agents hate doing rentals and they especially hate them in this kind of situation. I'm going to do all the work I'd do to market your home for sale. I'm going to do additional work to market it as a rental. And the odds are the rental will sell first and I'll get a very, very small paycheck!

But in this market, it's the right thing for a lot of sellers. And it's always a good idea to have the conversation. If you get a renter in there for a year, who knows what the market will look like a year from now. At the very least you've bought yourself some time!