Keep or sell my single family home

[S Moore]

So here it goes. I own my home in Canarsie, Brooklyn. It’s worth around $500,000. I owe around $374k. I just bought it in March 2018. I could rent it out and make about $2k/month, $400 less than the mortgage which is $2473/month.

I am wanting to quit my day job as a teacher and go back into acting, my passion. I am going back and forth between selling it and paying cash for a Co-op elsewhere, which would be around $70k. I would then start with substantially cheaper homes to invest in where I am going.

My question is this. How would I keep the house and use it as an investment and buy another home to live in?

Or sell it? Having the opportunity to own my next home outright. Then begin investing from there.

Let me know if this is in the wrong area. Any advice is appreciated. 

Some background:

* I currently do short term rentals which bring in $2400 (slow month) to $4000 (good month) per month but the money is not consistent. 

* My initial plan was to live in the finished basement and rent the upstairs. I would then take a part time job and live off my earnings from the part time job letting the house pay for itself with the income from the Short term rentals, then I could have more free time to pursue my acting career.  However with a $3,500/month overhead, quitting my job seems dangerous at best! 

* I would have to buy the Co-op before I leave my teaching job in June 2019.  

Thank you.

[Marcus Auerbach]

@S Moore your rent to (home-) value ratio is way too low to make it work as a rental property. Typically you are looking for about 1%, maybe a little less - so that would be around $5,000 a month in income. Keep in mind you also have to pay for repairs and maintenance, perhaps a new roof at some point etc.. so just making the mortgage payment is not going to be sufficient.

You are thinking too short term; you just bought the house, you want to quit in six months. That's too fast. Here is a quote I really like: most people overestimate what they can accomplish in one year, but underestimate what they can do in five years. Brandon Turner has a video somewhere here where he explains how you can quit your job in 5-7 years and live off real estate. That sounds like a very long time, but of you think about it, living off passive income indefinitley is pretty much like having won the lotterie..

Here is what I suggest: keep acting in your free time, teach kids for a living and figure out a way to replace your job income with real estate. Moving to a city with lower cost of living (and real estate) might be worth a thought.