Becoming a landlord during grad school

[Luke Liu]

I realize this may be a fairly unique situation but I'm wondering whether anyone can opine on this or point me to the right resources.

With the help of my parents I bought a condo in NYC several years ago. I've been living in it myself for the last 3 years, paying the condo fee/real estate taxes, and paying my parents every month to repay my unofficial mortgage (i.e. their unofficial loan to me; we bought it with cash).

I'm now going to go to business school for two years in Chicago so I'm wondering what to do with this property. My options are:

1) sell the property (and get maybe a ~8% return over three years); I understand capital gains are not subject to taxes if it's under $200k

2) become an NYC landlord and rent out the place while I'm in school. I may return to NYC afterwards and live there.

So my question is, how much of a hassle is #2 going to be? If I'm in grad school, with no income and a temporary residence, am I going to pay "income tax" by becoming a landlord in NYC? After paying real estate taxes, the condo fee, there's not much left over from rent, and if i have to pay income taxes on rental income then that may be close to zero/negative cash flow. If there's some possible deduction I can take for being a poor student that would help.

Anyone care to opine? Thanks!