I'm trying to assess whether we should sell our what is now our primary home, or keep it as a rental when we move to a slightly bigger house on a quieter street. (As background, my partner and I live in NE Seattle with 3 kids with a fourth on the way so we need more space and not to live on the busy street we currently do.)
The housing market has been rather hot here for sellers, with many properties in this part of town going over asking price with multiple offers. Our current house is in very good condition and we've done lots of updates. I estimate that we could get at least between $425-450k if we sold. The other numbers are this:
We paid $410,000 when we bought the house in October 2010. We only put 5% down on this house, and recently refinanced to a mortgage of about $387k to a rate of 3.625% for a 30-year fixed. This translates into a monthly payment of $2131, which includes taxes and insurance. I'm guessing we could rent our house for $2200-$2500.
Obviously this wouldn't be a big monthly excess of money for us once the mortgage is paid. However, we would conceivably build equity in the current house. The systems and appliances are all new-ish so I don't anticipate any major repairs being needed with tenants. That said, things do go wrong and neither my partner nor I are particularly handy. Should we sell for a small profit or hang on to it with the potential headache of renting it out?