TORN ON WHAT TO DO!!! HELP!

[Sara Donohue]

Hi there! I would love any and all advice from anyone who is seasoned in the investing world. PLEASE! It is a dream to achieve financial freedom via income properties! Its a new arena to me and I need help making a decision...

We were (by the grace of god) able to buy a house in Jacksonville, FL via FHA loan and have been living here a year. The neighborhood we bought our house in is blue collar and growing. The neighborhood we bought our house in is blue collar and growing. We purchased for 155,000 and owe 136,000 on it. Our monthly payment is 889.00. It has appreciated about 40-50 k over the last year and would rent for around 1450 or sell for 190 - 200k. The neighborhood we bought our house in is blue collar and growing. We need to move to another town for family reasons. We are now looking to either-

A- SELL. Use the equity to buy a home in the other town, the home we would buy would be around 280,000 (cheapest there is and about 10-15 minute to the beach so hoping that that would be a good investment down the road). We would then use our leftover cash and save to buy an income property sometime within the year. 

B- Rent out our place and buy an apartment in the new town. If we held onto our place to rent out, we wouldnt be able to buy a SFH only an apartment. I feel oddly attached to our current property so I'm getting torn on whether we should attempt to rent it out. I'd hate to sell to find out that I'm basically looking for this place all over again. I can't figure out whether or not the numbers make sense. renting for 1400-1500 when our payment is 900. It seems super tight and so I'm overwhelmed.

Typing this makes me feel better HA!

Any insight? Really wanting to break into the income property world, but don't want to make a stupid decision.