New to BP, dilemma. Sell or rent?!

[David Walker]

Alright folks, new to BP and this is my first post. As Brandon Turner has encouraged in the first book of his that I am reading "The Book on Rental Property Investing" here I am posting to the discussions forum. My wife and I purchased a duplex as our first home after college in 2012. We live in one side and rent out the other to an tenantwho has lived there since 1990(wow). We live in Tri Cities WA and trying to move to Spokane WA. We are trying to figure out if we sell or rent the other side. We purchased in sept 2012 for 152k with FHA 3.5% down, we currently owe 134k on the mortgage. Property taxes are $1,634 a year, pmi $139(ouch!)/month, and insurance $45/month. Our mortgage payment is $970/month. Water roughly $100, irrigation $195/year. Our tenant pays her own electricity and garbage. Tenant rent is $675, I think we could rent our side for $775 for $1,450 total. I think I covered all the numbers but please let me know if you need more info.

I had a real estate agent tell me recently they would price today for $187k-194k. My dilemma is that we want to move. So do we sell or do you rent? We currently have $50k sitting in the bank, waiting to be used on a down payment for our new personal residence, we are looking in the $250k range. We currently are saving $3,125 a month into our savings, and have been all year. Of course, the equity in the duplex is an additional $56k if we sold. Of course there will be agent fees as well.

So do we refinance on a 30 year term the duplex, which would get rid of pmi and drop payment to roughly $830 to increase cash flow? Or do we sell and take equity and out to put into another real estate deal or add to down payment fund for new house? Or do we just keep saving at the rate of $3,125/month until....

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this post, I appreciate all the feedback I will receive.

Cheers!

[Dave Foster]

@David Walker, You've got some time to delay a final decision.  It sounds like you're in good shape to purchase your new house either way.  You can decide to wait and rent the primary half of your duplex for up to three more years and still qualify to get the tax free primary residence exclusion.  All that is required for that is that you have lived in the house for 2 out of the previous 5 years.  So if you rented it for 3 more you could still access that exemption and get the benefit of three more years of appreciation and cash flow.  You will need to recapture the depreciation from the three years of rental service.  

When you do sell you will do a 1031 exchange but take the cash out for the 121 exemption and it will be tax free. Patience can be your friend if you aren't certain of your course right now.