Homeowners - what did you do with your house while you were RTW?

Hi all,
We are in the very preliminary stages of planning a RTW trip. We own a house and plan to rent it out while we are away. I'm interested in hearing from others who have rented out their homes while travelling. Ideally, we'd like to rent the house furnished so we don't have to pay storage costs while we are away. We aren't looking to make money, just cover mortgage & other house expenses (taxes, utilities etc)

A couple of questions:
1) Do you know any good sites to post long-term furnished rentals? I know about sabbaticalhomes.com but don't really know of many others. We are trying to avoid short term rentals (like airbnb) as this will take too much to management/risk having an empty house
2) Anyone out there have success renting a furnished home? anyone fail and have to change plans last minute?
thanks!

What do you call long term? 6 months, 1 year, 2 years...?

I'd actually just go to an estate agent and get them to manage everything. Even if this is more expensive you don't want to have to manage stuff whilst on the road.

Another thing, you don't mention where you're from - websites in the UK may be different to Australia, N. America...

you don't say where you are from so presumably you are American. You need to get local advice on your laws, insurances, etc etc. This can go horribly wrong without proper planning.

I rented out my house in the UK - stashed stuff in the attic, rented it unfurnished, everything I valued went to kind relatives/friends. No problems, luckily.

Thanks for you replies!
Sorry. We're Canadian. We'll be gone for one year dates TBA and likely dependent on finding a good tenant. I guess what I'm really wondering is whether there a decent market for furnished 1 year rentals, but now that I think on it, the answer to that question really is dependent on location. It's the biggest source of anxiety for me in the whole planning process since it will have a big impact on our timing/budget.

Edited by: meowmeow

We have been away 4 times for between 3 and 6 months, and have just found house-sitters who were friends-of-friends or relatives of friends. If you put out the word that you're looking for house-sitters, it's amazing how many people come out of the woodwork.

Basically we asked them for a monthly amount to cover our costs, which was less than the market rent. We were more concerned about not leaving the house empty than we were with making money.

We also asked that they dealt with any issues that arose, eg. opening important-looking mail, getting repairs done etc.

We haven't had any problems with this arrangement, but if you're worried, you could always get a lawyer to draw up a proper contract.

I've done the same as joolz2, renting to friends of friends or work colleagues. On a 6 month trip, the tenants also looked after my cat (he seemed none the worse for the experience).

Offer your place at below the market rate and you should have no trouble finding someone to take care of it while you're away.

If you live near a university, you might be able to find faculty who are visiting on assignment for one year.

Very good advice, folks, Thank you. I'm hoping it won't be too hard. We do live near a university and in a great neighbourhood, so I'm hopeful. Thanks again all.

Thought you might like to know that trustedhousesitters.com is great (I don't work for them, just really like their service!). We are a 30-something couple trying to stretch our modest travel dollars and landed a housesitting assignment in Norway. It's great because we get to experience being here and the homeowners can go on holiday knowing their house and pets are well taken care of. I have a friend that is housesitting in South Africa for 8 months doing the same thing. Good luck!

Update - we move out in just under 2 months. We found our tenants through sabbaticalhomes.com. We didn't even have to pay/create for a listing - they had posted a "home wanted" ad and I replied. Happy travels!