Why would someone rent their home just to sell it? I don't get this?

Jan, I'm interpreting your question differently. I apologize if I am missing the jest of your question but here is my response.

There are times, especially in the market of the past few years, where it was difficult to get an offer on some homes. In those cases the homeowner may have had to relocate and leave the home vacant. So now they have mortgage payments on a home while they are living in their new place. They want to sell, but in some cases it made sense to rent the home until it sold. That way they had income to help pay their mortgage. On top of that, a home that is staged with furniture will typically show better than a vacant home. Thus making the chance of getting an offer a little higher. The fear is that the renter does not take care of the home or makes it difficult for perspective buyers to see it.

Finally, there is another perspective. Some seller's will consider what is called a lease option. In this scenario the seller has a perspective buyer who is qualified to purchase today. They may be qualified to purchase 12 months down the road. So the Seller will lease the home to the buyer for 12 months. At the end of that term the "renter" will have the option to buy the home and possibly apply some of their rent to the purchase. These can be complicated scenarios and I would recommend getting a Real Estate attorney involved to make sure all the implications are properly drawn up.

It's an investment strategy. Generally speaking there are 2 ways to make money from real estate. The first is to positively gear your home by renting it out at a greater price than what you are paying on your mortgage. So every month you see a nice paycheck that goes directly into your pocket. The other way to make money is to buy and property and hold it for a period of time long enough for the capital growth on the home to increase beyond what you paid for it (and plus expenses).

In actual fact the ultimate way to make money long term is to rent out your home, go and live in another place for cheaper rent (or for free with a relative) and then sell your home in roughly 5-7 years when the capital value has increased over what you paid for it. The problem with this is that it generally means living in less that ideal living situations (smaller home, making sacrifices etc) and humans in general live outside of their means.