Rent out house and bleed for a while or sell it and hemorrhage once?

[Ryan Mcpherson]

Moved to Austin for work and purchased a home in 2021 with just under 4% interest rate. Due to circumstances at the time I was able to put 0% down without PMI. Fast forwards to 2025 and I need to move again for work. Since purchasing the home, housing market in my area has declined about 20%. This puts the home underwater.

I've calculated the following two options:

1. To sell the house, it would cost me about $60,000
   out of pocket.
2. To rent the home, I would lose about $2,500 per month (based on comparable rents in my area, property management fees, etc).

Both options loose the same amount by roughly 2 years, and by this time, I still will not have built up much more equity in the home to make selling it a break even unless there is price appreciation by then.

My dilemma is this: I speculate that my home will not appreciate much in the next 3-5 years due to the rapid pace of development in the surrounding area.

In 5-10+ years, maybe, but by then I'll have bled $150,000 - $300,000.

I have thought about this a lot and feel that I mar'-too close to the problem to see the best solution.

Any constructive advice would be much appreciated.