I purchased a home in 2008 for $144,000. Right after I bought it, the housing market crashed and the value fell to about $70,000. It's gradually come back up and a couple websites are estimating the value for $140-149K. In 2010 I took a job that was an hour away and my spouse was also driving an hour each way for school. We decided we wanted to move closer to my job/his school, however we couldn't sell our house without losing a TON of money. Since lots of people had lost their homes, there were a lot of people looking to rent, so we've been renting it out ever since. The rent we charge covers the mortgage and taxes and that's about it. We've been pretty lucky with renters (only 2 families in the past 6 years). My current tenant's lease is up in August, but he's asking if he can break it and move out in April.
So, I'm trying to decide if we should try to continue renting the home, or if it would be a good idea to put it on the market. Honestly, being a "landlord" is a pain in the butt, the house is an hour away, and I don't want to deal with the listing/renting/collecting rent/home repairs/etc. that go along with it. We owe about $120K on it right now.
Does it make sense to try and sell it at this time? We'd likely need to use a realtor since we live so far away and both work full time now, which would take a chunk of the sale price. We haven't lived there for 6 years, so it's no longer considered homestead and we'd probably have to pay taxes? I am not sure about most of this, and maybe this isn't the best place to ask. The home is in Michigan if that helps...
Submitted February 28, 2017 at 11:30AM by izjustsayin http://ift.tt/2m9Bkbl
