Buying a primary home while having a rental property

[Roy Mitle]

Hi

I am interested in buying a new home. My present home has almost been paid off and is in an excellent location. I also have a rental about 20 miles from my present home. Since all of these properties would be in the same area I would be tied to one location and that seems risky.

However, my rental has a very low mortgage rate and its doing really well - good tenants, good location and all that...I would really hate to sell it. Basically we brought the rental because we didn't know if we would buy a new home to live in but still wanted to take advantage of the appreciation in our area.

What are some options that I can do?  Ideally I'd like to have the new home, existing home and keep the rental but that is too tied to one area and seems risky to me - so if a local downturn came it would affect jobs, rentals, home all together. Its just that my rate is quite low so I don't know if there are creative ways to lock in the rate for a buyer of the rental...