@Kevin Velasquez - First, thank you for your service.
When deciding whether to sell or keep your home as a rental, you should consider your goals. How active or passive do you want to be? What is your financial motivation, cash flow, tax benefits, appreciation?
A few reasons not to keep would be:
1. To the extent your home has appreciated while you own it, you must sell within 3 years after moving out or the gain will be subject to income tax. Even if you 1031 exchange the property that tax liability will follow you to the next property and ultimately have to be recaptured unless you 1031 until you die and leave the properties to your heirs on a stepped up basis. You can avoid the taxes completely on any income from appreciation as long as you lived in it 2 out of the last 5 years which means you will have to sell within 3 years after moving out - or plan to move back into it later for at least 2 years.
2. Managing a single family property from a distance is the most expensive and the most time consuming wat to invest in real estate. A property manager will be less incentivized to take good care of your property and give you good service because you only have one property. Any contractor will be less incentivized to give you a good price or good work or quick work because he is less likely to get future work or referrals from you because you don't live there. Also, you cannot easily inspect his work because you do not live close by. The caveat to this one is that you said you are from Maryland, so if you have friends/family in the area it might be a little bit easier, but this is still the hardest way to invest.
3. Properties we live in are often not good rentals. Will it rent for 1% of the property's value? The last house we sold was worth $370K. We could have rented it and covered the PITI, but it would not have cash flowed much and by the time we incorporated vacancy, maintenance, and capital expenditures we would have been upside down by a lot of money. I took that same $370K and invested into 7 rental properties using the BRRRR method and we now cash flow approximately $3K a month in addition to covering all the expenses and paying someone to keep the books. Consider the asset and its potential return.
Some reasons to keep may include:
1. You probably have very favorable financing on this home. Maybe you got a VA loan with a very low interest rate and 30 year financing. You can get 30 years on rental properties, but you will need 20% down and pay a higher interest rate.
2. Realizing the equity puts cash in your pocket to buy another property, but you may be able to accomplish almost the same thing by using a HELOC.
3. If you are planning to eventually move back to the area, it's a home you are familiar with and made memories in so it might be special to your family (this could also be a downside if the tenants you put in place mistreat the property).
4. If the property is in a rapidly appreciating market your appreciation may offset any losses/costs in the intervening years. There are tons of people who invest in properties they lose $200/month on because they anticipate selling the property 5 years later for $100K more than they paid for it. I would caution you that this is speculative and can come back to bite you if there is a downturn in the market, but if you can hang in there you may be able to ride the ups and downs of the market and choose the time to sell when the market is up.
Lots of stuff to consider, but there are several people who have served and obtained properties in their duty station while doing so. Some of them have been on the podcasts. You should listen to their stories if you haven't already.
Either way, kudos to you for thinking ahead and planning for your future. I know you will end up being successful no matter what you choose.
