Townhome rental advise

[Alissa Hyder]

Hi BP community! I’ve been stocking you for a while now, gleaning as much wisdom from these forums as I can. I am hoping you all might be able to help me sort through a decision to keep our town home as a rental or sell. We close next week on a live-in fixer house and will be moving out shortly there after. Our original plan was to rent the townhome but as I’m learning how to run the numbers on rentals it does not appear to cash flow. Here are the particulars ... It is a 3/2.5 townhome that we bought new 8 years ago. We are the first owners. It is in highly desirable area next to a lake and high end retailers. We owe $143k on it. It currently values as $320k. Mtg/tax/ins/hoa is $1300 + vacancy, repairs, etc. Going rent is $1600-1700 Our long term goal is to acquire multiple rental properties and this would have been our first BUT now I’m thinking it would probably be best to sell and buy something that cash flows better? What are your thoughts?

[Nathan Gesner]

Look at it this way: if you had the money right now, would you buy the townhome as an investment property? If not, then I suggest you sell it and use the equity to buy a solid investment for a better return.