Help Needed to Assess Investment Property

[Rohan Desai]

BiggerPocket Community - I live in the heart of Silicon Valley (Santa Clara) and own a townhouse. We are looking to upgrade to a single family next year but I am debating whether I should rent my townhouse or buy a property outside of Silicon Valley or California where I could get better cap rates. With about 50% equity in the house, I have close to 0% cash-on-cash ROI and 2.37% Cap Rate which is standard for the area. Given the low cash returns and cap rate, the only potential upside to keeping this property is the appreciation and strong rent growth (>3%). Here are the options I have:

1. Rent the townhouse

2. Sell the townhouse and invest in another property with better cash-on-cash ROI and Cap rate.

What do you guys think? Thanks for your time!

[Amit M.]

Why almost 0% roi? With 50% equity what is your piti and what is the monthly rent? We need to see your numbers, and a bit more info on the townhome (size, location, hoa, etc.)  to help you.  But in general you’ll do much better keeping prime Bay Area property than going out of state. In a few years you should have hundreds of thousands in added appreciation. And with 50% equity you should cash flow ok too. IMO your equity position = win-win. That’s how people get rich in the Bay Area. Or put it this way, more people get rich in the Bay Area by investing in RE for the long term than by striking it rich with start up stock options or utilizing stock purchase plans of larger tech companies.