Rent or sell primary residence?

[Jared Lichtin]

I may be moving to Houston soon for work. I am 50/50 on whether I should sell or rent my house. I flip houses part time, and selling my house right now would probably net me about 40k. I don't "need" the money right now, but I am doing the math with the rental option and I feel like I could net about 100k by renting out and selling in 4 or 5 years, or just get my down payment and change back and selling it. Numbers below. I do not own any rentals but I think I might want to pick up a few this for the passive cashflow. This seems like a good rental deal. What kind of tax benefits am I looking at? And do you think this is a good deal? The house is fully functioning, pretty much everything is brand new now. Any advice would be much appreciated. Purchase-183,000 (appraisal came in low so we had to renegotiate, so I got a good deal and put more down, was in contract for 202,000) 32,000 down Could sell now likely for 190-205,000 without an agent Mortgage balance 147,000 Monthly payment: 1,030 Rental market value: 1600-1800 (have confirmed this with several agents. There are zero homes for rent in the area, as I live in a very good school district, so could put a renter in there very quickly.)

[Chris Messier]

Consider capital gains. The way I understand it is if you live in a home for 2 of the past 5 years it's considered primary. So in 3 years from now you'll reach the threshold where selling before that date you'll pay no capital gains, sell after that date and you will.