Sell or Rent primary residence?

[Jason Dumbaugh]

Hello all,

Looking for some sell-or-rent advice. My wife and I purchased our first-ever home in Viera, FL (on the Space Coast) for $430k back in Oct 2022 with 10% down using a 5/1 4.5% ARM. We're now 2y+ in, and set ourselves up for a live-in-flip. We now have about $100k in equity. I ran the numbers and it looks like our house would not cash flow (between $0 to -$300 /mo) as a rental, mostly due to the astronomical property tax and insurance rates. Our house is the cheapest in our neighborhood, and the Viera area continues to open new businesses and build up with new $650k+ homes. We have CDs maturing at the end of the year that could fund a new primary residence.

Should we:
1) Sell it with no Capital Gains tax. Put the profit towards a new Primary residence and ~$50k towards a rental property.
2) Rent it out and eat the cash flow loss, hoping rents increase. Use our maturing CDs to buy a new primary residence. Mind you, we've got 3y left before the 4.5% ARM turns variable (+/-2% per year; min 2.5% / max 10.5%).
3) ???

Thanks in advance!

[Jonathan Greene]

I like number 1 just based on what I read, especially if you can get a new primary and shave off a downpayment for an investment property. Too many people get tied to their real estate, but all assets are tradeable especially when they won't cash flow when you leave them. Even if you decided to do MTR or STR, you would be hustling just to be net positive. I would sell, pat yourself on the back for making good equity, and turn 1 property into 2.