Owner Occupancy and a Bad Situation

[Jeff Elwood]

I'm in a rough situation. I bought my single family house in December with the full intent of sticking it out and making this place my home. I began improvements, and started making friends in the new area. My health took a turn for the worse, and my performance on the job suffered greatly because of the treatment.  My performance went from top notch to bottom scraper.  I was pushed off to a client site job where I was basically doing next to nothing and working in a concrete back room. The client site became a toxic work environment where an individual was putting words into my mouth and trying to disparage me to others. I could go on and on. 

I started looking for another job and could not find anything locally. 

I used two recruiters in town (upstate NY) starting in January to find job locally, but my skills are very specific. They turned up nothing, not even a job description. I started getting lots of pressure from my work - they were asking me about my dosages of medication and when my treatment would be finished. They retroactively changed their sick policy to try to get rid of me. I decided to interview out of state, and found a job within a week.  I signed an offer.  

I resigned from my old job before they could fire me and took the new one. I am driving to my new place, well across the country, (just a small apartment) in 2 weeks.  I'm kinda committed at this point to leaving.  I have no job here, and a job there starting soon.  

I am now trying to handle what to do with my house.  I just bought it in December ( but rented it from the seller before purchase because the closing took so long)  I had no intention when I purchased it of leaving this soon.  

The house is an FHA mortgage. I did sign an Affidavit of Occupancy.

1.  Can I rent the property out?    I talked to a property management company.  They can rent it out well above what i paid for it.  The loan company, PennyMac, will certainly find out if I get landlord insurance.   

2.  Can I sell it from out of state?  Now that I'm looking through the forums about this question I'm starting to get very scared that I may not even be able to sell it.  Does the owner occupancy clause prevent me from selling?  It looks like I might break even given the improvements to the property and the time that it was purchased vs the optimal time in April.   I might end up having to take out a personal loan to cover a difference.  

I was up until 1 am last night searching this forum but most situations pertain to people trying to bend the rules to rent out a triplex.  I was hoping someone could help!    

Thanks

Jeff