Tried to sell your house lately? If you bought before rates climbed, you already know the math doesn’t add up.
A new habit is taking hold across the country, especially in Denver: homeowners list their houses, watch them sit, and then keep them.
Welcome to the age of the accidental landlord.
. Nationally, about 2% of homes listed for rent were previously listed for sale, the second-highest share the company has recorded in nearly six years.
Denver tops every metro in the country at 5%.
A market that won’t budge
Why is this happening? Seamus Nally, CEO of the , points to a simple standoff.
“You’ve got the golden handcuffs,” he says.
Homeowners locked into 3% mortgages don’t want to trade them for today’s rates, and buyers aren’t racing to overpay in a cooling market.
So sellers pivot. They rent out their homes instead, and the math often works in their favor.
Nally explains that landlords can typically pocket $500 to $1,000 a month from the difference between what they collect in rent and what they owe on the old mortgage, money that helps cover the cost of a new home.
Suddenly, renting doesn’t look like a fallback. It looks like a plan.
From seller to landlord, almost overnight
Megan Cuellar experienced this firsthand. She listed her north Denver home in the summer of 2025, right as inventory spiked.
“We sat on the market for six months,” she says. “Carrying two mortgages going into winter just wasn’t a fun financial time.”
So she pivoted, found a tenant fast, and rented the home for $3,500 a month while she and her husband bought a bigger place in Conifer for their four kids.
She wasn’t a real estate expert, and she didn’t pretend to be one. Three friends pointed her to TurboTenant for screening and paperwork.
“It guided me through everything I needed to do,” she says. “Going in, I was completely blind.”
Now she’s even talking with her tenant about a future sale. Sometimes the accident turns out to be the plan all along.
Renting isn’t as scary as it looks
Becoming a landlord overnight can be intimidating, especially if you wing it.
Navigating local rules around screening, security deposits, pet rent, and late fees can feel daunting. Denver requires a rental license, and skipping it brings real consequences.
If you’re new to this, start by researching your city’s landlord-tenant laws, applying for any required rental license, and setting up a basic tenant screening process.
Taking these first steps helps you avoid surprises and protects both you and your future tenants.
But Nally says most first-time landlords are surprised by how manageable it actually is once they have the right system in place.
Run the numbers on what a property like yours could rent for, and you might find the picture looks better than expected.
One simple way to estimate your rental price is to check out similar homes for rent in your neighborhood on popular sites like Zillow, Craigslist, or Apartments.com.
Look for listings with similar bedrooms, bathrooms, and features, and use their asking prices as a starting point.
The news and editorial staffs of The Denver Post had no role in this postap preparation.
