Buyers remorse - need help and guidance

[John Smith]

Hello, I recently purchased a property as a first time home buyer and regret the decision. I now have the home up for sale attempting to get someone else to buy it. I haven't had any requests to view it in a week since posting it, I am hoping it will just take some time, a couple weeks to get some showings in. or it may be that the market has changed and I am screwed and will have to live here for the unforeseeable future

If I sold the home at a loss, say 10k , can I pay the difference to the bank/mortgage company , I know if you sell a home at a loss, its called a short sale, but I don't know if that would apply to me? if I pay the difference at closing? 

I don't think I could rent the place out, as the mortgage payments are quite high so rent might be out of someone's budget, plus I would then responsible for any issues that come up and if they wreck the place, even worse. If I am not mistaken, the home owner in GA is responsible for all the systems in the home and can't rent it out for the renter to handle everything. not sure if there is a way around that, like a rent to own situation?

Do I have any options except wait for someone to buy and stay in the home until I can get it paid off to an lower amount where I can sell it for a lower price?

Any comments, opinions, advice is appreciated. thanks!

[Greg Weik]

Hi John, have you spoken to a property manager regarding the likely rental rate?  It may be more than you expect, and a consideration for you is that even if you end up subsidizing your mortgage by a little bit each month, this is far better than giving away the home.  If you can even rent it out for a year or two (hopefully mortgage interest rates will settle and the market will bounce back), you would pay down some of your mortgage and hopefully eek out some appreciation.  

A good PM company with high standards will put solid tenants in your home who are extremely unlikely to cause damage.  The risks of damage or default are always there, but they are reasonably small risks. 

I find very often that people who can't cashflow on a property think it's a bad investment, out of hand.  I would take a more nuanced approach and consider the return on investment differently: If you have to subsidize your rental $100 every month, but at the end of the year it's worth $5,000 more, you still come out ahead, right?   Losing $10k out of hand on a short sale does not seem like the smart play, IMO.