[SomethingClever]

Update:

Well, it's been a year, and we still haven't fully decided on this.

Our travel date is coming up (target: Sep 1) and we are trying to figure out whether to rent the house or sell it.

I still would like to rent to friends or family, but we're running out of options. I do have one friend that might be a possibility.

- He just moved back into town with his wife and is renting a home for $900 in a significantly worse neighborhood than mine.

- Our house is significantly nicer (and bigger) than his.

- He wants to buy a place... but not for 6-12 months.

The only roadblocks are that we need to rent our place for at least $1200, and preferably more like $1400. And having just moved (in Jan/Feb), he may not be quite ready to move again.

I think we could find renters on craigslist that would be happy to pay $1400, but then we have to make sure we're getting good renters, and put someone in charge of collecting payments and managing the house (repairs, maintenance) while we're gone. It seems a little stressful.

On the flipside, we had our house appraised. Our agent thinks $349,000 is a good list price. Factoring in commission and everything else, we could walk away with about $140,000 tax-free.

It's pretty tempting.

We still like living in the house, and would probably stay there another few years (2 or 3 to be exact) if we weren't going traveling.

So... does renting it out still seem like the best option?