Should we sell or rent?
Here's the data:
Townhouse in suburb
Market Value: $300K
Original Purchase price: $300K
Original Mortgage Amount: can't remember, lived here for 10 years
Interest Rate: 4 3/8
Mortgage Term: 30 years
Term remaining: don't know.
Amount remaining on mortgage: $35K
Gross Rents: $2K per mo
Principal and Interest:
Taxes and Insurance (the T&I of your PITI): $6K / yr
HOA costs: $125/ mo
Deferred maintenance notes: Most appliances, a/c, etc are about 15-20 y.o. But currently don't have any immediate repair. Rental area is Luke-warm, but so is the house selling market.
Here's our situation:
We live in a Ne suburb. We are moving 10 mi down the street. Taking on a bigger mortgage (I know, sounds very un-mustachian, but I want the relatively huge amount of land to grow things and our house is also our splurge. We live extremely frugall and have a healthy nest egg. I am a full time mom and the husband is happy at his job and not looking to change anything. If any of that were ever to change we could cut expenses/sell/relocate etc and be okay without any hardships or need to work.
On to the real estate question issue. I know if I were buying a rental place this is not a good investment but our situation seems a bit matured and I'm not sure if we should sell or trial rent for almost 3 years (my tax man tell me this is an interesting option, lose $ on house it can be a loss, appreciate $ on house it can be invested in new house ). Thing lost with that option is the time value of the $240K we'd make investing.
One Hold-up is that I'm very into the renting and managing but I'm also insanely busy these days being a mom of some very young children (3 less than 5y.o.). In a few yrs they'll be less needy but for the next two years I'm already a very swamped FTE. Hubby is less enthusiastic about the hassle of it all.
Part 2, for those who say to rent. Should we pay off the balance on the mortgage? We could. In fact we need to do something better with some of our lousy cash sitting around not getting interest. The interest rate on the new property will be lower. (We're good at making $ and not spending $ but a little too relaxed about investing $).
Thanks for all the insight. Please ask if you want some other info
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