New construction for our first rental but getting cold feet

[William Harmon]

We are in the process of buying new construction in a town next to Portland OR for our first rental. We committed to buy form the developer in February and the math made since and we would cash flow about $100 a month. With the rise of interest rates we will now owe about $150 - $200 a month. The purchase price is $409,000 and we are projecting rent at 2499 a month. This will be a long term hold and we are planning on a cash out refinance to pay for our kids college. Oh yeah we found out we are expecting twins in November! The same house plan is now 10K more than what we are locked in at. We are going to lock in our loan rate in the next week or two. The house will be finished in late July. Do we walk away and lose $4500 in earnest money. Or do we stay the course buy it and refinance in a couple years when interest rates come back down. Looking for guidance from those who have traveled this path before us. Thank you

Purchase price $409,000

Down payment $95,000

Expected rent $2499

Monthly payment $2600

[Rodney Sums]

Quote from @William Harmon:

We are in the process of buying new construction in a town next to Portland OR for our first rental. We committed to buy form the developer in February and the math made since and we would cash flow about $100 a month. With the rise of interest rates we will now owe about $150 - $200 a month. The purchase price is $409,000 and we are projecting rent at 2499 a month. This will be a long term hold and we are planning on a cash out refinance to pay for our kids college. Oh yeah we found out we are expecting twins in November! The same house plan is now 10K more than what we are locked in at. We are going to lock in our loan rate in the next week or two. The house will be finished in late July. Do we walk away and lose $4500 in earnest money. Or do we stay the course buy it and refinance in a couple years when interest rates come back down. Looking for guidance from those who have traveled this path before us. Thank you

Purchase price $409,000

Down payment $95,000

Expected rent $2499

Monthly payment $2600

 This may be a stretch but do you have financing contingency to get out if you don't want to be negative each month? Is the lender ok financing your investment property with you operating at a loss?

Here are concerns I have about what you and another poster said that you should consider:

"Do we refinance it when interest rates come back down".....You don't know if or when that will happen 

"This is going to appreciate quite a bit in the next few years in addition to rental rates".......there's no guarantee this will happen or happen well enough to get you out the negative.

I'm not saying rates won't go down to refinance or that the property value and rents won't go up. That's certainly possible and you'll be ok.  Be aware you risk being cash flow negative for an unknown period of time.  

One of the things I enjoy about a new build I bought is fewer maintenance requests than the resales.  Perhaps this will be your experience to soften your budget but I wouldn't base calculations on having no maintenance requests.