Is this a good idea?...

[Jason D.]

My wife and I have been trying to sell our old house for the past 5+ months or so with not much SERIOUS interest. With winter setting in we are worried about the possibility of it sitting vacant and us continuing to pay two mortgages through the winter. We have been wanting to sell this house and purchase a rental property, but now we are thinking about renting this house out. It would not fit the 50% rule but being less than 10 years old and knowing the history of the house I think we can be less conservative with our expenses while still setting some aside each month. Has anyone else run in to this situation? Should we just hang tight and wait to sell? I guess you need to start somewhere (as a landlord) but i was thinking a less expensive house as our first as opposed to our old house. A quick breakdown of numbers:

Mortgage/ins/taxes/hoa ~=$1,000

Rent ~=$1800-$2000 (from what I've been told by a few realtors

Cash flow would not be our primary concern, rather renting it out, paying down more of the mortgage and then revisit selling come summer time.

I'm pretty new so I may be missing some stuff, that's why I came here! Thanks in advance for any feedback.