Should I Keep Or Sell?

[Jorge Jimenez]

I'm in an interesting situation. My grandmother recently passed away leaving her condo in Windsor, CT to my brother and myself. I used to own a two-family house in Windsor Locks, CT, but my kids and I moved in with my grandmother a few years ago because I lost my job and she needed help. I ended up walking away from the two-family because it was my first venture into real estate and I made a lot of mistakes, and learned a lot of very valuable lessons the hard way. I really want to get back into the rental market, but I also really want to move to be closer to the rest of my family (they all live in New Orleans, LA). 

So, right now I have this condo which my attorney says I can stay in for at least a few months as long as I keep paying the home equity loan my grandmother owed (about $9k total), the condo fee, etc... My brother doesn't want the place. It's a little run down, but not excessively so mostly just needs some upgrades (carpet, paint...) 

Basically, I have two options: 

A) I can sell it with my brother. We would pay off all of my grandmother's debts and split what's left. I would take my half and go invest it somewhere else. With this option there's the issue of finding a place to live (I don't plan on moving out of state until the end of the school year - so around June).

B) I can buy my brother's half out. I'm not sure of the legality of how we pay off her debts this way, but I'm sure the lawyer knows how to take care of that. With this option, I could stay here as long as I like, the bank basically gets a 50% down payment, and I could move when I want and keep the condo and rent it out later, or sell it later. The biggest issue with this option is rehabbing the place and whether or not we should do that before or after I buy my brother out. (I'm not trying to screw him out of any money, but I'm not trying to get screwed either.)

I'm sure I'm leaving out a lot of information that would be helpful, but it's my first post so... fire away. I just want to get some opinions. What would you do if you were in my shoes?

Thanks.