To sell or not to sell my home in paradise

[Sungyong Kim]

Hello BP!

During my time on active duty in the military, I purchased a condo in Oahu, Hawaii using my VA loan. I have now left military service and my new work landed me in Northern Virginia. My condo is currently occupied by a tenant but my condo has depreciated almost 10% this year due to COVID and I was also new to real estate investing when I first purchased the condo and did not consider how the HOA fees would impact my finances. Unfortunately, even though I have a tenant that is covering my mortgage, I am losing several hundred a month due to HOA fees. I am now considering selling the place and would like to use my VA loan to purchase a home in Virginia. I am torn about selling the place because I absolutely love my condo and I always imagined it to be a long-term hold and have plans on returning to Hawaii as soon as an opportunity arises. On the other hand, I do think that selling the place may be the right decision so that I can minimize the loss and be better about investing in real estate in Virginia. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Dave Foster]

@Sungyong Kim, What you're holding onto is a memory of a time.  Even if you moved right back to that condo it would still be a different time with a different result.  Compare trying to hold on to that memory at a cost of hundreds of dollars a month in lost rent.  What is that costing you in current experience and new memories?

That's as zen as I'm going to get today.

Sell 1031 get your investing career rocking and then go back to HI flying first class and buy newer better bigger memories without sacrificing life today