To flip & Sell or use first house as rental property!?

Question

As my wife and I get closer to starting our rental property journey the house we are living in currently is still a point of contention between the two of us. We have both agreed that rental property investing is a direction we want to go, but can't seem to figure out what to do with our house. So back story on our house- when we got married- her parents (who used to be in the rental property game) sold us one of their previous rentals for dirt cheap as a fixer upper starter home. They had previously rented this rural property out for very cheap without raising the rent for 10 straight years. For the last year and a half we have been slowly remodeling the house and property. My wife is dead set on the idea that we should sell this house when we are complete and move into a bigger home, however I think it makes more sense to rent this house out once complete to start our rental property portfolio. Any advice or pros/cons would be greatly appreciated!

Jaron Walling · Answer

@Dalton Chmelik Sweet numbers! You're in a wonderful position and have a few options. You could easily rent that property, pull some equity, and find another deal. If you're not already better run the numbers as a rental. There are expenses on top of PITI when holding rentals.

Maybe you can get an owner occupied loan (leveraged, lower interest rate) and try to repeat. You could sell and take it all into the next deal. It just depends on your investment goals. Get the money working you not the other way around.

Dalton Chmelik · Answer

Thank you for the advice!

So far we've been doing the basics as the house was built in 1910 and it needed a lot of TLC. We've put in a ton of sweat equity with refinishing the floors, replacing windows, upgrading electrical, and just general remodel. All in all we've probably dropped 5-10k in repairs so far since we've done 95% of the work ourselves or with help from family. Only big ticket items that are left is the roof- the rest is purely cosmetic.

For context we bought the house for 99k and last appraisal put the property in it's entirety at around 350k. I personally love the property and might be letting my own emotion steer me towards holding and renting. Both selling the house and renting it out make sense in my head. Looking at similar rental properties in the area the property could rent for $1200 which is double what our mortgage payment is.

Trying to figure out if it's worth keeping for starting monthly income or as you stated use the cash to find some deals.

Thanks!

Jaron Walling · Answer

@Dalton Chmelik No offence but it sounds like your wife is letting emotion control the investment journey. You can't make wise choices without NUMBERS.

If you dropped hella coin and over remodeled the property I wouldn't rent it out. If it cash-flows negative I wouldn't rent it out. If you stand to profit $70K and pay no capital gains (primary resident for 2/5 years) I'd sell and put that money to work. Find a deal and follow the buy and hold strategy. Sacrifice something in your life and leverage (safely) with these low interest rates. Selling and buying a bigger house accomplishes nothing.

Dalton Chmelik · Answer

Awesome!

Thank you much for the insight!

To flip & Sell or use first house as rental property!?

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