Are you considering whether to sell or rent your home?

Making the decision to sell or rent your home can be difficult. In this video, San Diego Realtor Katy Carlson will explore the pros and cons of each option so that you can make the best decision for your family.

You've decided to buy a new home, congratulations. You may not be sure what to do with your current primary residence. Do you sell it or do you keep it and utilize it as a rental property or AKA a investment property? Well, my name is Katy Carlson. I'm with Whissel Realty, and I hope that today, I can help you tick the meter in one direction or the other. We've been having this question so often because if you're not aware, the rental market in San Diego right now is bananas. It would make so much sense that you would want to cash in on that.

So if you're curious which way to go, hopefully this will help. The first thing that you are going to want to do is look at the financials of this. Let's look at the new home first. My guess is that you have an idea of how much you want to spend. That's the most important thing. Now, here's the question. Without the sale of your current home, do you feel comfortable covering the down payment, the closing costs, and the monthly mortgage of the new home? If the answer to this is no, this is a not right now, and that's okay. If you said, yes, I do feel comfortable with that. Let's now take a look at your current property. You may have an idea of what you can make in monthly rent on your property. For instance, if you come to me and say, Katy, I've done my research, I think that I can get $3,500 a month on my property.

That's fantastic. It's great information to have, but here's where the confusion sets in. And most people are not aware of this fact. You will actually only net approximately 60% of the monthly income. So if you can get $3,500 a month, you're actually going to look at the number $2,100. Does $2,100 cover your current mortgage and then some? If it's a no, this is probably a not right now scenario for you. And again, that's okay. But if you answered yes to both questions, let's sit down and have a conversation together, because there are still tons of pros and cons to weigh.

A couple of pros right off the bat. You can utilize the cash flow from the rental property as verifiable income for your new property. That's fantastic. And on top of that, you've got somebody else helping to pay down your debt while you're building equity on two homes. Amazing. A couple of things to think about that may defer you from this is that to have two properties, you have double the responsibility. Now, whether you hire a property manager or not, and I highly recommend you do, this has already been factored into that number, you still have the ultimate responsibility on that home.

So when a tenant moves in and they don't care about your property the way that you do, and they tear up the carpets or they break the refrigerator, that's still your responsibility. And ultimately, the tenant's problems will become your problems. If they can't pay rent, that's your problem. If they don't want to move out for whatever reason, that's your problem, too. So you have to be prepared to take on that extra responsibility. Again, there's a lot of pros and cons to this, and I would absolutely love to help you figure out which is best for you.

And I promise I have no skin in the game. Of course, it would be beautiful to help you sell a home and buy a home, but I know that building your real estate portfolio is one of the best investments you can make. So, if I can help you move in that direction, that's a win for me, too. And I'd also like to help you find the new home. So, let's have a chat. You can call or text anytime.

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