What’s the old house worth?

>Appraisal: 389,000

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Mortgage, taxes, and insurance are about $1400. So rent would give you $600 to $1000. That's best case assuming no vacancies, nothing breaks, and not factoring in the cost of you or your family's time to manage the place.

Or you could sell, and get $80-100k. Even in a CD or bank account that would get you $300-$400 a month in interest. If you invested, it would potentially earn you more.

You have a yr to try it out. Put it for rent, see how hard or easy it is, while living with your friend for a bit (or even rent an apartment).

Do you make enough to have two mortgages? No.

Do you make enough to have two mortgages while having a steady reliable rental supplement income? Potentially yes but it is risky to you.

Do you make enough if one of you is jobless? Flat out no, TOO much risk then. You need to be dual income or one late rent payment and you are done, on both houses. Neither of you make enough solo.

If the rent really is 2k and your mortgage is 1k, it is a no brainer for keeping the single mortgage tho. Assuming that your renter demand is steady, and you aren’t in a bubble.

Sell it. You do not want to be a long distance landlord and you have no experience being a landlord.

Enjoy the move and the new city/area.

I totally agree with your assessment. We don't make enough alone, and together it only seems to work with the revenue stream.

I am on the edge.

Thankfully, if I did attempt to rent out the old house and we got into a financial situation, I would immediately take the steps necessary to balance the books. I do have a reasonable 401k balance that I would never touch unless it was to pay bills on time while we sold the old house but I would be checking my accounts to head off dipping into the 401k to begin with.

However, do I want an added amount of stress on my life?

For the first time ever my wife and I feel like we are in a good place financially. We can afford our bills, we are building the emergency fund. Once our emergency fund is funded we are going to increase our 401k contributions and loan payments. Now this job opportunity opened up and, you know the saying.. mo money mo problems?

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The house I live in is in a hot market and its still not cooling. Time on market is 3 days, that is an improvement from 1 day. We do not have enough housing inventory.

This is probably the right answer.

Still, if I walked away from things I didn't have experience with, I would always be walking and never learn a thing.

As a landlord, I say sell. Doing it long distance is not going to be fun. You can't rely on your family to drop everything when your tenant discovers a roof leak or broken toilet. Hiring a property manager will cost you 10% of rent. Your potential margin may look good on paper, but you will be responsible for upkeep, cosmetic fixes between tenants, new appliances, etc. - if you are realistic about how much those things cost you will quickly see that your profit is unlikely to be worth the headache.

I own a condo with a super who handles all of the headaches for me, and even so, I wouldn't want to do it long distance.

Thank you for your insights. Figures always look good on paper then reality comes and hits you in the face don’t they?

Your right long distance does have its issues. I used to run operations for a logistics company and had three remote sites across three states I was solely responsible for. Getting stuff done when sprinklers burst, delivery vans caught fire - it’s a headache for sure.

Would you buy a house across the country?

There's your answer.

I kept my old house as a rental only a mile away and I’m really glad to have sold it recently. Even being around the corner was a hassle, I can’t imagine doing it across the country. Maybe if you have a professional property manager taking care of it for you, but then that eats more into your income and your learning experience.

Thanks for sharing your experience, good points!

Selling a house takes time and you aren't guaranteed to be able to sell at a price that will break even, let alone be profitable. Counting on being able to sell later when the chips are down is not something I would do.

I couldn’t agree more. There are not guarantees and there are risks in investments. I appreciate your input, this has been on my mind as well.

>Still, if I walked away from things I didn't have experience with, I would always be walking and never learn a thing.

yes, but the problem is there's easier ways to gain experience - the issue isn't doing something you've never done before, the problem is doing something in the hardest way to learn. It'd be like skipping an electrician's school and going straight to work as a non-apprentice.

A couple of counterpoints here. Using a property manager has made renting out my home relatively painless other than the 10% they take each month. If something breaks under a few hundred dollars they just fix it and take it out of the rent. Over that amount we have a conversation but they do all the work. They also find new tenants when needed. I haven’t seen anyone mention how your house should appreciate in value over time. Eventually the house will be paid off by your tenants and it will be worth more than you paid for it (obviously not guaranteed but more than likely).