Capital gains question for primary residence

[Timothy Frazier]

My current home is a single family house in my name and with mortgage debt in my name in PA. I have lived in this property for several years and due to the appreciation in my area over that time as well as the upgrades and repairs I have done to it, have good equity in the property.

Probably within a year or two I could be moving. However I would like to keep the property and mainly use it as an Airbnb for several years. I was trying to see if there was a good strategy for navigating around paying a capital gain on how much appreciation I've had. My understanding is it would be about 15%. I have an LLC where all my investment properties are held in, but I'm worried if I move it to that it could trigger my due on sale clause and I'd lose by 2020 mortgage rate (the low payment on that is why I'm attracted to keeping it long term).

Anyone out there run into this and have any good strategies? Also if I’m able to pay the mortgage off before I move out of it as my primary residence, could that open up other opportunities to try to avoid the capital gain?