Our Singer Island house, and why we rent it instead of selling it

We bought our house on Singer Island in 2016, after our children had left home, for $780,000. It is a three-bedroom pool home a five-minute walk from the beach, with Palm Beach across the inlet and Jupiter half an hour north. For six years we used it ourselves for a few months each winter and left it empty the rest of the time, and by 2022, with prices high, we nearly sold it.

Why we kept it

We did the arithmetic on renting it instead. An empty house on the ocean still costs money every month: the tax, the insurance, the pool, the lawn, the air conditioning running to keep the damp out. Renting it to guests turned those costs into something the house paid for itself, and selling would have meant giving up the one place our whole family still gathers. So we kept it, and we changed how we use it.

The numbers

The house is booked about 68% of the year, around 248 nights. Our rates start at $399 a night in standard season and rise through the winter, and the average over the year is about $410, which is roughly $102,000 in gross rent. From January to March the house mostly goes to one guest at a time for a month or more, which suits us: fewer turnovers, and the kind of guest who treats the house like their own winter home.

There is no mortgage. The rent covers the tax, the insurance, the utilities, the pool and lawn, and the repairs, and leaves something over most years. Insurance is the line that has grown most, and it is the one to watch if you are buying on a barrier island.

What the ocean does to a house

Salt air is relentless. We have replaced the air conditioning condenser twice in ten years, the outdoor fixtures rust faster than you would believe, and anything metal near the pool needs attention every season. We put in impact windows in 2020, which was expensive, but it brought the insurance premium down, took the shutters out of the hurricane routine, and guests notice how quiet the house is.

On the coast, maintenance is not a surprise, it is a schedule. Air conditioning serviced twice a year, exterior metal checked every spring, roof looked at after every storm. If you keep up with it the house stays rentable; if you fall behind, it shows in the reviews.

The guests

Singer Island draws people who want the beach, Peanut Island and the boating around the inlet, and a quieter base than Palm Beach itself. Our winter guests are mostly couples from the Northeast staying for a month or two. Summer is families. In four years of renting we have not had a stay we regretted, and several guests come back every year.

What success looks like

We did not keep the house to get rich from it. We kept it because our family wanted it, and renting it means it costs us nothing to keep and a little more than that in a good year. Thanksgiving and April are ours. The rest of the year the house looks after itself, and after a decade on Singer Island that feels like the right answer.