Poor CF investment, Advice on selling below market rented unit

[Peter Bayliss]

Hey everyone just looking for a bit of advice and support in my next moves toward real estate investing.  Full disclosure, I've made A LOT of rookie mistakes and I shouldn't have trusted others to know what was best when it came to buying a property.  In the past couple of months, after research and analyzing I've come to realize all my mistakes.  What I need now is advice on a a way to get back on track.

  So when I initially invested in my current property, I had nothing in the way of an investor mindset.  I had just always heard that it's a good idea to invest in a home, not really understanding why.  So my first mistake was to make an offer at the listing price right off the bat.  My second mistake was to buy a condo when I should have bought either a better deal or a duplex.  Anyways,  I aquired the property, lived in it for about a year, and probably did about $5,000 worth of improvements.  When I moved in with my girlfriend I did some research on being a landlord and wrote up some of my SOPs and a lease.  I then posted a for rent ad on facebook well below the market rent because I thought, "Hey, there's a major housing crisis in my region right now, I'll help out some people by offering an affordable price."  As you might expect, I was inundated with almost 100 messages with in the first 3 hours of posting.  I was overwhelmed and picked about 20 people to respond to.  I went through the whole screening process and signed(a year long lease) with a young couple(19years old and 21 years old) looking for their first apartment together away from their parents.  They gave me a security deposit along with first and last.  A property manager, who I know, because we're both on the board of the condo, contacted me and told me I'd listed the rental way too low.  After our 30 min conversation I'd realized I'd made a pretty big mistake and it's going to be pretty challenging to rectify it without my new tenants leaving.

To make a long story short, I've made a bunch of errors and am trying to get back on track sooner rather than later. I barely, and I mean barely, break even on renting out the unit currently. Meaning, that if anything causes me to spend money on maintenance I lose money on it. Fortunately, the unit is in very good condition, and the HOA takes care of a lot of the other things. My options right now are to wait until the end of the current lease and jack up the price to market rents, increase the price by a more reasonable amount being 10%, or tell the tenants I'm not renewing the lease. But all of that is a year out. What I'd like to do, is to sell the condo ASAP so that I can put it towards a down payment for a better investment. But currently having tenants in the property who are paying WAY below market rent right now, I imagine, makes that very tricky. I would greatly appreciate any advice. The housing market it hot right now, so should I get a realtor and try to sell? Should I try to sell to the tenants? Should I try to refinance even though I don't have much equity built up yet? Is there a way out at all? I appreciate any advice.