Greetings! Long time viewer, first time poster.
I need help in deciding whether to rent or sell my home. Or rather, is seems smarter to keep and rent.
Currently owe = $120,086.12. Original loan = $124,900. Closing costs and down payment = $0 - I used my VA loan, my bank (NFCU) and the seller paid all closing costs. Mortgage = $775. Interest = 3.375%. We paid $1,300 (rent) when we first got here - savings of $525. But we had to pay $4000 to break our lease (ouch). That money, plus some, has been recouped from the $525 in savings. But we also did some work in the crawl space = $5,000. Definitely haven't recouped that, yet. We met with a listing agent today and he would list at $130,000 and they charge a flat rate of $2,995 if their office is responsible for everything. If buyer brings agent from another realty company we have to pay 2.7% to them and the $2,995 to our agent, which would equal $6,505 if we got full asking price. This would give us a profit of $3,495. But that's if everything goes right, and if we decide that is good for us, which we don't believe it is. We live in a very established neighborhood with schools listed at the 10 (elementary), 8 (middle), and 9 (high school) on great schools.org. The house is on roughly half an acre. It is 1,249 sq ft. No garage, no basement. I think the house would rent for $1,000 easily. Property manager seems to be 10%. We will leave at the end of May or very early June after finishing graduate school. I'm active duty Navy, enlisted, but will be commissioned in roughly two more years after I get licensed. We don't plan on buying a house again until we decide on our forever home and location. I'm in a Saint Louis suburb and will never come back here, as far as getting stationed here again. 17 years active duty and will be at 19 when I get commissioned an O2E and will owe the Navy 8 years for this training. I will stay in until 30 years which will give me 75% of at least O3E pay, but most likely O4. I will be 48 when I retire.
I'm not sure if you need this information, but it might help with advise:
TSP = $39,245 no more contributions
Roth IRA (wife) = $37,546.99 stopped contributing at the beginning of this year
Roth IRA (me) = $26,060.81 stopped contributing at the beginning of this year
529 (son - 7 years old) = $19,646.49 ($100 x month)
529 (daughter - 2 years old) = $8,575.76 ($125 x month)
Capital One = $3,625.13 savings for antimustachian 20 year anniversary vacation (6 more years) $100 x month
Ally = $1,237.14 just started contributing $600 month - plan to use this money for big purchases as they arise
Two CDs worth roughly = $25,000 that will mature in 2015
Emergency Fund = $6,000 - $231 x month
And $7,500 in investment account - $1,000 x month contributions (that's why our IRAs and TSP went to zero) - we plan to use this money for our forever house - we will most likely move the $25,000 in CDs here once they mature
The wife and I are 35.
Please let me know if you need any more information.
Thank you.
histblabber