Should I downsize my personal residence prior to a recession?

[Anthony Viscuso]

Totally new to BP, and currently doing all of my reading, and podcasting research.  I'm eager to get into my first deal, but have to attend to my own residential issue first.  Here's the backdrop:

My wife and I purchased our first home from a flipper, in a nice part of a not-so-great neighborhood. We now have a 3 year old son and don't want to send him to school in this area. There are additional reasons that we want to move out of this neighborhood as well (commute, crime, homelessness, etc). We have plenty of equity in our home to move to a better neighborhood. However, doing so would require us to downsize into a condo and use all of our home's equity as a down payment to ensure that our new mortgage payment is the same amount as the old one. My intention with moving to the condo would be a transitionary (temporary) move until my son starts school and my wife goes back to work. My concern is that if we sell our home at the top of a market cycle, and put all of the equity into a new condo, is there a risk that prices could fall and we'd lose our equity in the condo? In other words, if we put $100k into a condo as a down payment, would I still be able to HELOC that money out if I needed it to purchase my first deal?

I do not think that renting out my current home is an option since I live in CA and the rent would probably be $150/mo positive, but that doesn't account for any expenses (CapEx, property management, or vacancies). Additionally, since we bought the house from a flipper, it has much nicer finishes that a rent-ready home, so i'd be worried about renters damaging the nice cabinets, flooring, etc.

Does anyone have any knowledge about the timing of the market and the risk to my equity if we do move?

Does anyone have any ideas that maybe I haven't thought of about how to solve this situation?

Thanks in advance, 

Anthony