Travel therapy and renting our house

[Connor Helseth]

Hello,

My wife and I bought our current residence in November 2021 (1987 split level 3 Bed 2 Bath) in Hudson WI. My wife is now thinking of looking into Travel Occupational Therapy since my job has become fully remote and we'd like to take this opportunity to travel/work around the US before having kids etc etc. We would like to hang onto our house because it's in good shape and we secured a 2.75% interest rate on it which is impossible to come by in recent months. There's a chance we only do the travel therapy life for a year or two and want to move back into the house. Our thought is, we live near several clinics in the Hudson area, why not try to rent by the room to medical-type students looking for housing during clinical rotations? I've heard you can get your place listed within clinics housing databases for students, and other online groups. My dad is nearing retirement and, unprompted, said he'd be happy to help as a property manager in town while we are away.

I've been a long-time lurker of the BP community, but this would be my first attempt at real-estate investing in any sense. I just wanted to get some feedback from the community about any red flags in our idea I'm not thinking of. Should we instead just sell our house and try to buy a different place if/when we settle down from the travel therapy life? How much would we miss that low 2.75% interest rate?

Love the community here, thanks!