Sell or rent out my house?

[Alexander Babbie]

Hello all,

My wife and I bought a house in Plattsburgh, NY about two years ago.  The house is a 2400 sq foot, 3 bed, 3 bath, big pool and hot tub.  Since we bought the house, I have put about $15,000 into it, as I have completely remodeled one of the bathrooms and completely rebuilt the back deck, which wraps around the pool.  I have also painted the house top to bottom, including painting the trim white, which was that orange pine 90s look before.  Suffice it to say, the house looks amazing and brand new throughout.

Now, I work in Burlington, Vermont which is about an hour away and involves a 20 minute ferry trip across Lake Champlain.  We bought in Plattsburgh because that's where my wife worked and the home prices are *drastically* more affordable than they are anywhere in Vermont.  My dilemma is my wife unexpectedly landed a much higher paying job in Burlington recently, which has left me unsure what to do with my current house.

Both of us commuting and spending hundreds each month in ferry / travel costs on top of the time commitment is silly.  So the question becomes do I sell or rent this place out?  I have an amazingly low 3.2% fixed mortgage on the house, and according to most realtors I should be able to rent it out for ~$100-200 more than my total mortgage payment.  Plattsburgh doesn't have a large single family home rental stock, and we have a few big employers coming in, so the house *could* be a nice long term hold.

However, due to those employers coming in this year, those same realtors have told me that this area has been quite the sellers market and if I listed it I should be able to sell it for $20,000-$25,000 more than a bought it for, which isn't bad for only owning it for 2 years.  On a negative, the roof has only 2-3 years left, which would cost me $6,000 or so if I did most of the work myself (luckily I'm fairly handy).

What to do?  Do I turn this home into a long term rental and be an "accidental landlord" banking on the lack of single family homes for rent in my area, coupled with the new employers coming in and the central, convenient location of the house?  This of course involves risk to a certain degree, but then again so does all real estate.  Or do I sell it when the market's hot and not have to worry about a potential downturn later on?

In either scenario, my wife and I would rent in Vermont for 1-2 years minimum, as we want to ensure we don't run into this problem again if we can avoid it.

I'm a complete real estate noob, so any advice on strategy and timing regarding this situation would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers..

-Alex