The best strategy to sell your home in a slow housing market may be to rent it out. While that may sound like smoke and mirrors, it does make sense. This is not for everyone. After all you have to have some place to go if you rent your principal residence out.

We read a Wall Street Journal article that sellers of so called"trophy" homes were actually renting their homes instead.
For example,Eleanor Roosvelt's former residence in Manhattan listed for sale at $20million in December. Now the owners have listed it for rent at $60,000a month.

In February 2008, Rock Star "Prince" rented a a Tuscan villa in Beverly Hills California for $200,000 a month. The house was actually put on sale in August for $50 million but there were no takers.

Renting your home will provide you the following benefits:

• Provides needed cash flow to offset part or all of the mortgage payment,
• Tax deductions for mortgage interest, depreciation, insurance, and the care and maintenance expenses,
• Avoid selling at the worst time- renting buys time for the housing and credit markets to recover.

An overlooked benefit is that your renter may just turn out to be your future buyer. You can facilitate this by giving the renter the "right of first refusal" if and when you want to sell the property.

You can also provide an incentive by counting some of rent money you received as part of the buyer's down payment for the home. If your renter does decide to buy your home, you may even avoid a real estate commission. In many cases, this ranges between 5-7 percent of the list price. If this happens though, we suggest that you do consult an attorney to ensure that you are protected by the home sales contract.

Irrespective of whether you are selling or renting, we suggest that you stage your home to maximize what you can get for it.