Sell, Rent, ? help

[Brian Stark]

So I'm looking to get into real estate.  I am hoping to get about 15k for a down payment for a small but nice mutliplex house and house hack it.  My question has to do with my current house.

Some back ground. 

About a year ago i refinanced the house and took all the available equity out and lowered my monthly payment.  So there is basically 0 equity built up.

Current Loan amount is basically market value.  So if I sell I will have to pay the closing costs out of pocket.  I've heard of the 1031 but have never looked into it so don't know if that would help.  I plan to do some more reading on learning on that.  Any good links to read some info?  But I spoke with a realtor and they did a rough top of the head quote of 11k in closing costs eating up most of my down payment I was looking to use.

Current rentals in the area for SFR are going for 1200-1400 a month. Current mortgage and escrow payment total 760$. So below the 50% cash flow rule that most people talk about here.

So what would you all recommend for this situation?

Rent the SFR our and understand it maybe a 0 or even negative cash flow.

Sell the SFR and eat the closing costs.

Give up the house hack idea and continue to live in the SFR.

Something else all together?