Should I buy this rental?

[Mary Jay]

Hi guys,

So I have lived in a house, in an expensive neighborhood for 10 years,  my  child grew up there so I am very attached to that house and so is my son. It is 550K now, rented but its too big 5 bdr 3 baths so its always a big family that wants it and usually they trash it. I was thinking, if I want to sell it, the only way to persuade myself to sell it would be if I bought a smaller house in that area. A smaller house, 4 bdr 2 baths cost around 500-550K as well... I found one for 450K... It will rent for 2-2.5K...  The mortgage payment will be 3.5K. If I buy it I will be losing 1K per month... So my plan was to wait till the market goes up and the house where my kid grew up becomes 800K then I will sell it and at least I will have that 4bdrs little house there in the same neighborhood... At the same time, by the time the market increases in price I will be paying 1K per month towards the mortgage to cover what the rent wont cover, so its 12K per year of loss (if I get a good tenants and nothing breaks), then who knows even if the market does go up... I am not sure... At the same time, if I dont buy an alternative, then I will never be able to depart with my expensive house that is a bad rental... One smart person, who is a super smart investor said: "Its just a box"... I get it, but I am an idiot and feel like crying when I think about selling the house where my kid grew up, even though its a bad rental...What would you guys do? Would you buy a smaller house that will bring a negative cash flow so you could eventually depart with the bad rental?