Should I rent out my current residence?

[Josh Rothey]

So I live in a small rural community average rent goes for 1890 for a 3/2 in my zip code per the county data.

Current first house is a 3/2 I purchased in Jan 2021 for 210k currently owe about 180k with current value around 260k. Monthly costs are about 2k/month including fire insurance (high risk area). So that’d likely put me at a $100-200 deficit.

The prospect property I’d like has an attractive price of 270k with 600 more sqft and would be great for the fam to move into. I believe the mortgage will come out to around 3k/month which is fine but in the event I have to cover both 5k for several months would be difficult.

Should I proceed? I called a lender yesterday and they said if I had someone sign a lease with a deposit down I could use that income towards my new loan. Sorry if this is too much info im new to the rental game.