Ok so I have been debating on whether I should sell the house i currently live in and go rent somewhere else or stay here. (Renting it out is not an option I want to look into for now).
I bought the house in 2011 at a rock bottom price so it has appreciated quite a bit. I live in Long Beach, CA and in a nice residential neighborhood but I'm 26 with no kids and would maybe want to move closer to the "fun" areas closer to the beach which is why I want to move, but at the same time I like having my garage and huge backyard (which i can't get in downtown) so there are good reasons to stay or to move, so for now i want to focus purely on the financial aspects, I will use a 12 month horizon for some assumptions. Here are the numbers!
House is worth about $350,000 (zillow says $399,000 but i want to be conservative)
I currently owe $187,235 at 5.25% interest
If i sold the house today I would make $141,764 profit after 6% commission is paid out
I bought the house with my brother so he currently owns 30% "stake" so i would only keep 70% so about $99,235
If i invest $99,235 at a 7% return, in 12 months i would end up with $106,408
So this is the outcome in 12 months if i sell now
Now if i stay
Assuming the house appreciates 4%, it will be valued at $364,000 in 12 months (zillow says it will appreciate 8%)
with my current mortgage payment the same, in 12 months I will owe $183,720
If i sold the house then, i would profit $158,439 after 6% sales commission
So my share would be 70% of that, so $110,907
BUT since my currently mortgage "share" is about $950 a month (850 mortgage and ~100 maintenance, repair etc) and the rentals I would be looking at are in the $1,300 range I'm actually spending less money per month in my current house than if I rented. So I would be saving (and investing) $350 a month that I would otherwise not have if i rented.
This extra money to invest would be valued at $4,337 in 12 months.
So if I stay and sell in 12 months I would end up with $110,907 from the sale and $4,337 from the extra cash invested for a total of $115,244
Compared to selling now and renting a place for $1200 a month, I would end up with $106,408 in 12 months.
So I am better off by $8,836 by staying put for 12 months, is this correct?
Initially I though moving was obvious because i have so much equity tied in the house that could be earning me money in the stock market if i sold, but now after this calculation the tables have turned.
I know some of the assumptions in investment returns, appreciation etc can and will change. I have a spreadsheet where i can play around with all of those variables so more than anything i want to know if i am missing something in my calculation, some expense or thing i might have overlooked. This is kind of a big decision and as i played around with the numbers, there was some pretty big swings in both directions so i want to make sure I'm calculating this correctly. Any help is appreciated, I attached the spreadsheet as well in case anyone wants to take a look or play around with the numbers.