Keep Property as Rental or Sell

[Clifton Hastings]

Last April, after listening to days worth of podcasts, reading books, and doing a lot of market research, I finally convinced myself to invest in real estate. I was 24 and my fiancé was 22. We were living together in a terrible rental situation in a triplex. We both had finished school and got jobs within the last year and had almost no savings. Since I was eager to invest, I got what I could afford. A 186k dollar home in a part of town I thought would be a good long term investment. At this point I was all in on the idea of saving enough money to afford another house and keeping this as a rental. Now, a year later, our house has appreciated to an estimate of $220k. The inside has been flipped and an extra bedroom added before we purchased, but the front aesthetic is a 2/10 and the roof is on its last leg. My question is this: should I keep the house as a rental knowing it needs capital investments like a roof, new siding, new windows etc.(investments that would take all my savings), and just scrape by until I can afford a new house, or should I sell it as is asap, find a better deal on a new house and use the extra money to invest until I can find a rental to invest in? Or third option, use my current savings of about 15k to improve the aesthetic and bet on the ARV to provide enough for me to have a down payment on a new house? Any insight is welcomed and appreciated.