I have circumstances that have put me into a fork in my life's road. I don't think there's a definitive answer to this question, but i just wanted to pose it to the forum to see if others have different ways of thinking about it.
Currently, we have a single-family home with 15 years remaining on a 20-year mortgage in a medium cost-of-living area.
We are considering moving to a lower cost-of-living area and buying a duplex to offset our housing costs.
Here are the rough numbers from my napkin. None of them are future-adjusted, so many things other than the mortgage cost will likely go up over time.
Plan A (do nothing)
Home purchase price: $257,000
P+I: $19,200/year
T+I: $4300/year
Maintenance: $3000/year
Utilities: $1800/year
Net annual cost w/ mortgage: $28,300 x 15 years
Total net cost w/ mortgage: $424.500
Net annual cost after mortgage: $9,100
Plan B (duplex hacking)
Duplex purchase price: $350,000
P+I: $15,660/year
T+I: $8600/year
Maintenance: $6000/year
Utilities: $3000/year
Rent*: $15,120/year
Net annual cost w/ mortgage: $18,140 x 30 years
Total net cost w/ mortgage: $544,200
Net annual cost after mortgage: $2,480
* Rent is discounted to 90% of total to account for vacancy.
Strictly financially speaking, it seems like Plan B does allow us some near-term savings. Some additional savings ($4k/year) would come from relocating to an area without local income tax, but that would only be while i'm still working a wage-earning job. We do not earn enough to take advantage of itemized deductions or other significant tax savings, so i tried to keep this simple. This also does not account for the cost of move itself.
Non-financial considerations include: Do we really want to be landlords? Do we really want to move again? Etc.
Is there anything else i should be considering? Anything i've overlooked?