What would you do? Starting out, should we sell or keep? ????????

[Bart Rall]

Hi Everyone.  New to biggerpockets. Here's a situation I'm hoping  I can get some feedback on.  

Our mortgage balance is around 391K.  Live in fairly stable community with some military presence.  Contemplating selling our home and taking approx 220k we have in equity (after closing costs) to move to another part of country and take a different job VS keeping home and renting out (hopefully to military) and could safely clear (after property management fees) around 1000-1200 a month.  

On one hand, we would have 220k to do something (possibilities are endless) in another part of country (cheaper costs of living).  

On the other we would have a great investment property (having good cash flow) in a beautiful part of the country where we (if we kept) we would definitely retire to, or at least spend a good part of the year in.  

What would you do?  What are some things that maybe I haven't considered?  Thanks for your advice everyone.  

[Brant Richardson]

I use -10% for maintenance and -10% for property management.  With a solid rent like you have you could drop that maintenance down to 5%.   Have the tenant pay for any utilities you can, some areas require the owner to pay others do not, your friend doing property management should know for your area.   So it looks like you would be getting $1000/mo cash flow max.

Phoenix is known for being a good market to invest in and you will be there long enough to get to know it.  From a pure cash flow perspective phoenix is probably the better bet.  If you really want to hold onto your home you could refinance/heloc the money out to invest in Phoenix.