Renting vs Selling/Transferring Home to Family Members

[Jared Basker]

I currently have a 30-yr fixed rate mortgage on a single family home that is my primary residence. My parents live there as well. I'm looking to move out and get a house with my girlfriend within the next few years and have my parents continue to live in the current house. The mortgage is in my name (my parents' names are not on it), so I'm looking for the best way to make this happen. 

If I keep the house in my name and use it as a rental, would I need to do anything other than notify the lender and adjust my homeowners insurance to reflect the house is a rental? It's been a couple of years since my last refinance (conventional loan of $200K, value is around $275-300K). 

If I want to instead make it so that my parents' names are exclusively on the mortgage (without mine), I'm wondering if a sale is the only way to go (the loan is not assumable) or if it's feasible to refinance to get their names onto the mortgage with me, then refinance again to get my name off of it in a year or two. 

I figure the upside to the rental scenario is, of course, investing in multiple properties, while a downside would be having to most likely get a conventional loan on the second house with 20+% down and proof of sufficient enough financial reserves to handle two mortgages. 

In terms of the second scenario, the upside I see is the option to get a different kind of loan (say, FHA with a lower down payment and other assistance programs for K-12 educators like me) since I'd be getting a new primary residence instead of a second home. A concern, however, if we do a sale, is with the price, as I understand that if I sell at too low a price (say, $200K, give or take a few thousand to pay off my current mortgage), the IRS could assess a tax on my parents if the price is more than 25% below market value.

Overall, my primary goal is to create the opportunity to get into another home at minimal cost while keeping my parents in the current home, so I'm leaning toward transferring/selling the current property to them. Thanks for any input!