Help: Should I sell or Rent my House?

[Bryan Mack]

Hello Everyone.

I'm 34 years old and married with 1 child (2yrs old). We currently live paycheck to paycheck and I'm trying to get into Real Estate so that I can can get more income to hopefully give us a better living style. Trying to figure out how were going to pay our bills every month is a stressful way to live. Luckily we still have decent credit around the 700-750 mark.

So heres my situation.

We have owned our house for over 10+ years. We recently ran into an issue where the floor joists in the house were rotting due to moisture issues under the house where there was no moisture barrier from the ground and the house being built so close to the ground.

We took out a Home Equity Line of Credit on the house for $26k. Our current mortgage was around $74k, which brought our total debt on the house to around $100k.

The home is 3 bedroom, 2 bath, with a bonus room. So could be 4 bedrooms. We have done ALL the work ourselves except for finishing the drywall.

I will do a whole RENO thread once its done, but here is just a quick overview of what we have done.

Whole new Heat and Air unit, switched to gas, and moved duct work from under the house to the attic. Replaced all the right side floor joists and the Main Header Beam under the house and then scissored the left side floor joists to the new Header. With all that came all new 3/4 subfloor. After this was done we put down 14mm plastic under the house as a moisture barrier.

We dug a French drain around the front of the house back to the creek to help with any moisture issues under the house.

While we were under the house we also replaced all the plumbing with brand new pipes.

Both bathrooms have been completely renovated with the master getting a full custom tile shower and the other bathroom getting a soaker tub with custom tile surround. New toilets and Vanity.

The kitchen was remodeled, we removed about 6ft of a wall that came out to open up the kitchen into the living room. We built all custom cabinets, new countertops (will be stone or butcher block - havent purchased yet). All new appliances will be purchased. Removed the 2 seperate windows in and replaced with one huge window. Tile backsplash.

Took the utility room wall and pushed it back 3ft into the bonus room to widen it for more room. New cabinets in there as well and got rid of the water heater with a brand new tankless water heater.

All brand new laminate flooring throughout with tile in the bathrooms, new trim/floorboards, all new paint.

With all that beings said, when we took out the HELOC, the bank we have our mortgage through required a new appraisal since it has been 10yrs since our last one. The appraisal came back to $112k before any modifications. We are estimating and hoping for a appraisal of around $130k after everything is completed when we go to refinance again.

Like I said when i started this thread my goal is to get into rental properties to help supplement our income. If we do get the $130k appraisal that should give us a positive $30k to what our loan is.

My question is should I try and sell it and take the $30k to put towards another starter rental property or should i just rent my house. As far as renting goes, I would expect the rent to be around $1200/mo. My loan payment is currently around $400/mo plus another $150/mo for insurance. So with that said, we should have a difference of +$600/mo. Now obviously you have to plan for things that will happen to the home, which hopefully should'nt be for awhile with the house being basically brand new.

This whole process and idea of owning rental property and everything is brand new to me, so I would appreciate and and all tips/suggestions/comments. I apologize for this being such a long post and thank you for taking the time to read through it, I look forward to reading your comments. Please feel free to ask questions, I may have left out important information.