Beginner Investors looking for Advice

[Adriana Jimenez]

My husband and I recently started our real estate investing journey back in July of this year. We currently have one property, that up until recently was our primary residence. In July we decided to move back to my parent's house in order to save money and seriously begin our investing careers. Our first instinct was to rent the property after moving out to create some passive income. Seeing as we just now started looking into real estate investing, we did not have an investor state of mind when buying the property. We have owned the property for almost 2 years now and are financing through an FHA loan. We purchased the home for $120,000 with a 3.5% down payment. The home was valued right at $120,000 at the time, so we did not buy into any equity. The mortgage payment is about $990/month and we have listed the house on the market for $1350/month(washer, dryer, & refrigerator included). This is the monthly rent that the property manager that we hired came up with after doing a market analysis. The property has been on the market for 2 months now and we still do not a have a tenant. Our property manager has maybe contacted us about 4 times throughout these 2 long months to give us updates and it seems like the same story every time... We had someone loves the property but they are a bad applicant. Now because we do not have much experience I have trusted her judgement for the most part, but as the time passes I am becoming more and more skeptical. I have initiated most of the contact with her and every update is very vague. I called her for an update on Monday because she told me that there was a couple interested in renting the property the week before. She had not had a chance to look into to it yet, so she said she would call me back. Wednesday rolled around and I still had not received a call, so I emailed her and still no reply. At first I thought maybe she is busy with other properties that she is managing, but if that is the case it is not fair that she is not giving my property the proper attention. My property is located NW San Antonio near UTSA and Six Flags Fiesta Texas, which is a popular area so I did not think we would have a problem finding a tenant. My husband and I are seriously thinking about looking for another property manager. If anyone has a good recommendation we would really appreciate it. Now considering that my husband and I have had time to reflect on the situation, we wonder if it is even worth holding the property. The market value on the property has gone up to $135k-$140k and we owe about $114k on the loan. Maybe selling the property would give us a better return on the investment and give us some more money to start fresh. Like I said we are rookies in the game, so we are grateful for any piece of advice given. Thank you in advance!