Advice needed on if should rent or sell townhouse in ClearwaterFL

[Jonathan Bell]

Hi all this is my first post on this site, I am out of Clearwater Florida and getting ready to move into a house I have purchased.  My question for you all is should I sell or rent my townhouse.  Details below:

I paid 185K for a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath, 2 car garage townhouse in 2009. HOA fees 240 a month. My loan balance remaining is 150K. My tax, insurance, and mortgage is roughly 1200 a month. Adding in HOA fees will take my cost up to 1440.

I know I can sell it right now for 260K, or I could rent for approx. 1750 a month.  I recognize I will gain some tax advantages but not sure how much I will save in that department.  My wife and I make a combined 140K a year so we are in a fairly high tax bracket overall.

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!

-Jonathan

[Thomas S.]

Sell it, your rent is not high enough to cover your expense costs.

Additionally you have $90 K wallowing away lying dead in a property not earning it's keep. The value of your equity alone is worth $750 per month at a opportunity value of 10%. The property itself will lose money after paying the return on equity.

You will lose money unless your rent is closer to the range of $2200 - $2400/month conditional on you being able to pull out the maximum amount of dead equity first.