Sell or Rent Our Primary?

[Jon S.]

Hey everyone!  We are looking for some words of wisdom from those more experienced than us with our situation.  We are a family of 5 looking to move out of California.  Our primary residence is in Orange County, paid $610k, currently owe about $550k, market value is (per my realtor) around 900k. Monthly mortgage, taxes, insurance is just under $3200.  A couple local PM companies have said they think we can get around 3.5-4k/mo for it rented.  We are looking at moving out of state and initially renting in our new location while we get a feel for the area and new lifestyle. There's obviously a chance we could complete hate it and want to move back to Cali, but we're leaning towards that not happening.  So we are debating on whether we should sell our primary and use that cash to purchase a property (or two) elsewhere, or rent out our primary while renting for a year and saving for our next property.  To be honest I haven't bothered using all the fancy calculators to calculate the exact dollar amount we would profit/lose every month after taking maintenance etc into account. Our thoughts on renting is obviously to still retain the property in the event we decide to move back, all the while having someone else pay most if not all of the mortgage.  Our concerns are all the usual concerns one would have with renting (i.e. bad renters, missed/late payments, California being so renter-focused, etc).  And our concern with selling is that we may not be able to afford to come back to the lifestyle we've grown accustomed to in CA if we in fact returned.  So just curious to hear from those who have been through a similar situation and how that worked for you.  Any insight or advice would be greatly appreciated!