To Sell or Not To Sell

[Grace Wang]

I am a newbie to this forum and eager to learn real estate investment. I am wondering if any experienced investors can share your input about our case.

We bought a split level single house in Vienna, VA at $439K several years ago and the monthly rent is $2,300 now; however, the PITI will be at least $2,525 even though we are refinancing now. The location is within two miles from Vienna Metro, and a new metro station in Tysons Corner is to be built now. We see this property with a prime location for rent, but hate to see the negative cash flow. We've also considered selling this property and find other investment properties to bring in more positive cash flow; however, we figured we won't be able to get much cash back after selling it with the current assessment value, $490K.

I will appreciate if anyone is willing to share your wisdom with us. Thanks a lot!

[Jim Stardust]

This is the true definition of an "Alligator" property, you should sell it and move on. Even if you raise the rate to $3000 or even $3500 a month, you would still need to feed that alligator, it will continue to take money from your other sources of income, this property is like a thief stealing your money earned from your other jobs, how can you allow it to happen? There's no upside that I can see, properties are not going to appreciate that much, you won't have enough money to be worth a 1031 and you don't want to mess around with depreciation recapture tax if you don't sell soon.