Relocating outside the US - Sell or Rent?

[Jay Warner]

Career moves are moving my family to Europe for a few years. We purchased our home in 2019 and have an estimate ~$150,000 in equity in the home today. Based upon current rent estimates from local PMs we could expect around $1k per month cash flow if we were to rent the home. 

No one can see into the future, my concern is whether or not I should risk losing the equity in the home ($475k single family home) if there is a recession or housing downturn during these years. 

Ideally I planned to utilize the equity to begin my investor journey, so cashing out now could secure this but we would obviously no longer own the asset. 

Any advice? 

[Charles Carillo]

@Jay Warner

Whenever I am thinking about selling a property, I ask myself if I would purchase the property again today. Since this is your primary residence, you are able to benefit from the Capital Gains Tax Exemption; which would eliminate your gain (verify with your CPA). 

If you were still planning on renting the property, I would want to dig into the $1k per month cash flow number. Some PMs and RE agents fail to include all rental property expenses in their calculations when speaking to potential clients. $1k per month could become a much smaller number when all of the fees are actually accounted for.