Hey everyone! I'm having an interesting internal debate about my housing situation and I'd love to get some Mustachian input! I currently live and work in Nashville, TN, which overall isn't a terribly HCOL area (compared to what I'm used to), but it's getting there. I work right downtown, and last year I lived in an apartment within walking distance of my office, which was amazing. Last year I decided I want to purchase a home, but I could only afford areas that were a little further out of town, so now I have a 15-20 minute drive commute into work, depending on traffic.
Upon discovering MMM and the suggestion of living as close as you can to work, combined with missing living in the heart of it all, I've started to think about my options for where I want to live over the next few years. Here are my options as I see them, let me know what you think!
Option 1: Stay at my current house, mortgage is $1370/mo and I have a roommate paying me $700/mo in rent. This would keep my 15-20 minute commute, in addition to the added costs of driving downtown when I go out in the area with friends.
Option 2: Rent out my house (I believe I need to live there for 2 years, per my loan type though), for which I expect I could get somewhere around $1,700 or $1,800 per month. Then rent an apartment downtown, preferably with a roommate and use the rental to offset the higher apartment rent a bit.
1 Bedrooms in the main downtown area range from $1,400 to about $1,600/mo and the 2 bedrooms range from $2,000 all the way up to $2,500 or more. So assuming a 2-bedroom place at $2,000 with $330-430 extra from my house rent and a roommate, my net rent would be $670-770. Without a roommate it wouldn't be as good at about $1,070.
Of course with this option, I have to consider the fact that I'll have to deal with issues that pop up at the home as a landlord, so the $330/mo is kind of misleading.
Any thoughts/suggestions?