Moving On From Our First Home... Sell Or Rent?

[Brett Ehresmann]

Hello all! This is my first post, glad to be here!

My wife and I are moving on from our first home and we are wanting to get into rentals. I am trying to decide if we keep our home and rent it out, or if we sell it and look for other properties that might make better rentals (multifamily? fixer upper? etc)

Our current home is a 3 bed, 3 bath built in 2013. With the current market, it is valued at about 275k. I have 135k left on the mortgage, so I do have a bit of equity sitting in it. I'm thinking it would rent for about $1,800 and my monthly expenses would be about $1,600.

I'm wondering what options you would look at if you were in my shoes? Sell or rent? Take out a home equity loan?

The other thought in the back of my mind is where the market is headed and how inflation plays into things.

Thanks!

Brett