Sell or Rent- Fork in the Road! Help Wanted!

[Meghan Kolf]

My husband and I are looking to start our investing journey. We both purchased houses (2018, 2020) and after we got married consolidated into one house. The plan had been to rent the other property and did significant cosmetic upgrades (~$3,500). We are struggling to rent at a price point w/ significant cash flow and are looking at ~$125/mo (not accounting for any damage/repairs) and understand that this would likely be a net-negative venture or best case scenario break even.

Our options are

1. 1. Rent w/ ~$125/mo cash flow, plan to benefit from the eventual equity (understanding this would be a longer term hold), keep the 4.6% interest rate that is currently on the mortgage knowing this is not ideal but a solid house w/ good interest rate in a good/desirable area

1. 2. Sell the house (have had as a primary address for 2 of the last 5 so would avoid taxes) and use the profit (~70k) for a better investment. My worry here is w/ the difficulty finding cashflow, high interest rates, and being new investors, a misstep would be expensive and significantly set back our investing journey and may be worse than the current option w/ have w/ the house. Are we better to stick w/ what we have as we get started or try to find a better option in this unpredictable market?