Help! Should I rent or sell my house

[Anna Howe]

My husband and I are moving to Ohio later this year for a masters degree. The house we live in has a 15 yr fixed mortgage of $1,600 at 4.1 interest but it is only 2 bed 1 bath just under 1,000 sq ft. I truly do not know if we could rent the house for more that $1,600/month in Winnemucca NV, so we would either just cut even or maybe even have to pay a couple hundred to the mortgage to keep this house and have renters move in paying most of the mortgage. Ohio homes are cheaper so we could find a house that has a lower monthly mortgage and pay the difference to keep this house still. We would love to keep it as a long term investment as the value will increase over time. We only bought 2 years ago and one of our realtor friends said it is not a good sellers market right now and if we are able to hold onto it, then he'd do that. We might break even with selling the house even though we have also made some good updates to it. Please let me know what you'd do/any thoughts you have. 

I just need to know if it's a bad idea to hold onto your house if the rent will only cover mortgage or possibly be lower than your mortgage cost. 

Thank you. 

[Logan Laperriere]

Hi Anna,

If you sold your home in NV could you use your equity in that home to purchase 1-2 less expensive properties in Ohio that will have positive cashflow? 

Being an out of state investor once you move to Ohio may make self managing your property in NV difficult. If that is the case you will need to hire a property manager who will likely charge 8-10% of the monthly rental income. Breaking even, or losing a few hundred dollars a month to keep this property may not make sense. If the property has not appreciated in the past couple of years I would be hesitant to keep the property based on long term appreciation.