Depreciating a property that is paid for

[Heather Rivérun]

Hello All,

I am a newbie with investor aspirations.  Currently my husband and I own our home outright, in a real estate market where values and rents are continuing to go up.  We are outgrowing our current place, with the recent addition of a baby and are considering transitioning to a bigger place in the future.  Our main question is: If we transition our current house to a rental, can we depreciate it for tax purposes and how does that work?  Sub-question being: Or is it more advantageous to sell our house (likely for a 60k profit) and put that into our next place?  No, this solution does not give us a rental property, but our current home is almost 100 years old, while there is nothing wrong with it and we have put work into it, we know age could work against us/things could crop up.  Thank you!