…That is the question.

We have a rental that we were anticipating would become vacant soon as we mentioned before. Well, we did receive notice that he will indeed vacate by the end of April. This leads us to a few choices. The most obvious being, should we rent it out again or sell it?

There are pros and cons either way. This house was our first rental property and we bought it with a mortgage. Currently, the mortgage slightly exceeds the amount we get in rent…what they call an alligator. All of our other rentals are cash flowing.

We do have a fair amount of equity built in it, that would be useful in our new endeavors in Puerto Rico. Renting it out would be easier and we could continue to sock away equity with each rental payment…but are we up for that again? We are kind of in the mind set that we would like to tie up the loose ends here in Colorado slowly so that we can transition to Puerto Rico. But in order to make a big decision it’s good to make a pros and cons list.

Pros of Selling
We would get rid of the alligator in our bunch of rentals
We would net some money from selling which would help replenish us after spending a bunch in PR
We would have one less thing to worry about in Colorado once we do move
We will be selling in spring/summer which is a better time to sell/more buyers

Cons of Selling
Still a down “buyers” market
We’d be lucky to get what we paid for it
We will have to pay a pretty high mortgage (relative) without income until it sells
After commissions are paid out we will have put more money in than we get out (even though we’ll walk away with money in our pockets -still capital losses)
We’ve never sold a house before so it’s uncomfortable
May need to finish the basement to help it sell (which means more $$ and time that we don’t have)

It would be nice to stop feeding the alligator

Pros of Renting
It’s pretty easy; we know what we’re doing
The rental market is pretty strong
Have had some initial interest already
We could increase the rent slightly to make it cover the mortgage and stop feeding the alligator
We can improve the language of the lease
We would be able to pay down the mortgage more so that when we do sell, we’ll walk away with more
People like to move in the spring/summer time -more interest =better rent
Could wait a little while longer for the housing market recovery

Cons of Renting
Another thing to take care of/worry about
Will need to save longer to be able to move to PR with a large enough savings
Lots of unknowns about new renters
Not much wiggle room for errors or expenses (so close to the mortgage cost)

We initially bought this house with the intention of paying it off completely. That’s why we got a 15 year mortgage and why the payments are so high comparatively. When the housing market tanked we were able to afford those other houses more easily and so it made sense to put our money into those instead of this one. I think that was a smart move, but it still leaves us with this house that is not paid for. I personally think it would be a burden off our shoulders and we could start building cabanas that could be rented out in Puerto Rico instead. A sort of slow shifting of resources from here to there. On the other hand, we could get it rented out pretty quick. Set it and forget it.

I’m not sure. If you were in our shoes, what decision do you think you’d make? We are going to meet with a Realtor this weekend to see what she thinks we might be able to ask price wise. That will also help us to determine our decision…