Sell a home or make it primary?

[Simermeet Singh]

Hi all,

Hope I can get some expert opinion from you. 

I have a home which is on a busier street. 2 lane street. I bought it in 2013. It is in one of very good and established neighborhoods of SF Bay Area. My total cost for the home after rehabbing was around $1.3 million. I rented the house out for 3 years at about 70K a year. 

$1.3 million in the San Jose area does not get much these days.

In order to get into this neighborhood now even fixers or stock homes cost around 1.6 million and up. 

Very conservatively, if I sell my house I should get at least 2million net or more after taking the street into account. I am also planning to move from where I currently live. 

Given the scenario, and the low inventory, and rising prices of homes here in the Bay Area, I have three options:

1. Sell the home, take my profit but be priced out of the neighborhood?

2. Move into the house, since my cost is only 1.3 million and a similar home would cost well over 2.4 million in the nighborhood (but a          different street)

3. Rent the house again for 70K a year.

What would you do?  Thanks in advance for your input!

I currently do have a close to a $1million loan on the property which helps me do other flips.

[Thomas S.]

The prevailing attitude in your area is to rent with negative cash flow, having to supplement your tenants rent, and hold on till you die due to the unusually high appreciation rates. For myself there is very little logic in supplementing tenants rents only to see your heirs sell it upon inheritance a reap the rewards of your life's efforts. I would sell and not invest in a over priced area for rentals.

Your best option since your equity is relatively low, for the area, would be to move into it yourself.