Rent out or Sell your US property?

I have a property in NYC area and trying to figure out whether renting out or selling is the best option.

Renting out: pros- consistent income here in the US
cons - need a visa to come to the US, not sure if that is possible. big risk that I am really scared of

selling: pros - worry free
cons - market isnt that great now here in the NYC area

anyone had a similar situation? what did you end up doing? planning to move out next month

1 Like

I’m no longer in the NYC area so I’m not sure what the market is like.

In most Canadian cities, Covid-19 has improved the real estate market for sellers. Price have gone up, inventory is limited so I’d have to say it’s a good time to sell.

If the market isn’t great, then the question is what your outlook of the market is? And how you can manage your property while outside America. If you can manage the property and think that the outlook is positive then you should hold on to your investment otherwise sell.

It is sellers market now. If you sell now atleast you can make some profit.

Glad someone asked this question. I am also thinking of selling my property. But, many folks suggested to instead rent out, especially since house prices are very high in Toronto. Their point was, at least you can have some non-liquid investment in USA.

  1. Can others please share if it is worth the overhead of managing the property ?
  2. Are there any good property management companies that you may suggest to use instead of self managing ?

Good to see other folks in the same situation :slight_smile:

We own a condo in Chicago, IL and our plan when buying the property was to keep this for investment purposes in future. Once we finalized our permanent move to Canada, we starting weighing all the pros and cons for keeping the property.

Though there are no major cons in keeping the property in USA and just putting it on rent, it kind of adds a hassle of managing money in 3 places (USA, Canada and home country). In addition to this, we’d have to file taxes in USA until the property is being rented out. Furthermore, finding tenants and being a remote landlord can be a pain in it self. One might have to invest some money eventually in getting a good property management company.

Considering all the above mentioned points, we did some upgrades to our home (Re-did the bathroom etc. as it was a bit dated), and put the property on market few days back for a higher asking price than we bought it. This has been our primary residence for over 2 years, we’ll not be paying any capital gains tax.
We’re both starting jobs in our Company’s Canadian entities as soon as we land, so we’ve prepared to financially support the property in USA until it sells.

PS: Things would have been completely different if we were to stay in the States.

Hope this helps!

FYI, I have decided to take the risk and rent it out… probably will sell it out next year once I am settled there

Hi @migrate2can, I am also planning on renting out my current property in the US. Is there anything in specific that I should keep in mind? Did you have to file anything with the mortgage lender? Also did you use a property manager or do it yourself? Since this is now a bit of an older post, if there are now others that have done this, please weigh in on your experience. Thank you!

I am in the same boat. We should share information to ensure no issues

1 Like