NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast
Should You Keep Your Old Home? The Financial Case for Selling vs. Renting
Mon, 26 May 2025
Planning a big move? Learn how to decide whether you should sell or rent your home and fund your next down payment. Should you sell or rent out your home when you move? What’s the best way to fund a down payment from multiple accounts? Host Sean Pyles talks to NerdWallet writer Lisa Green about the big financial decisions that come with relocating across a long distance. Joined by listener David, they explore how to evaluate whether keeping a home as a rental makes sense, and what it takes to manage that property from a distance. They begin with a discussion of long-distance landlording, with tips and tricks on hiring a property manager, maintaining a savings cushion, and considering the tax benefits of depreciation and travel deductions. They also discuss which accounts to withdraw from with minimal tax consequences, how to leverage a HELOC before moving, and how the timing of a move can impact your financial strategy. Learn about down payments and calculate how much to put down on a house: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/mortgages/down-payment-calculator If you’re ready to find the right mortgage with expert guidance every step of the way, get started today at https://www.nerdwallet.com/prequalify/m/mortgage-experts/lp1 In their conversation, the Nerds discuss: renting out your home after moving, long distance landlord tips, property manager costs, managing a rental property from another state, home equity line of credit for down payment, how to get money for a home down payment, using Roth IRA for home purchase, cashing out taxable investments for a down payment, capital gains tax on investment sales, moving across the country with kids, how to prepare financially for a move, cross-country move costs, downsizing before a move, furnished rental property tax benefits, rental property depreciation, rental property travel tax deduction, renting furnished home to traveling nurses, comparing cost of pods vs U-Haul, best way to move long distance, property management for out-of-state rental, rental vacancy costs, tax benefits of keeping a rental property, how to handle moving logistics, financial planning for relocation, and how to access money for a house down payment. To send the Nerds your money questions, call or text the Nerd hotline at 901-730-6373 or email [email protected]. Like what you hear? Please leave us a review and tell a friend.
Should I sell or rent my home when moving?
account types, a Roth IRA, taxable investments, a 403B, and cryptocurrencies. But if 50 to, let's just say 50,000 to 150,000 or more down payment was needed, I was just curious, what should we consider in terms of tax implications, withdrawing strategies, or just selecting which of those accounts to draw from?
I currently don't have a large liquid down payment available, but with a couple months notice, I'm just curious, Lisa, your advice for where I could access a large down payment if needed.
I can touch on the tax part quickly. One thing to note around Roth IRAs is that you can take your contributions out, but you'll likely have a pretty sizable tax bill on earnings. And in general, withdrawing funds from a retirement account is likely to leave you with a tax bill and potentially penalties too.
If you need to sell investments, look into your taxable brokerage account because that is probably going to be the most tax-advantaged way to do it. If you've held the investments for longer than a year, you'll be taxed at a favorable long-term capital gains rate, which is lower than your income tax rate, most likely.
So that might be the best way to go, potentially, if you need to sell investments. I'm wondering how you personally have thought out which option might be best for you. Have you maybe put together some sort of nerdy spreadsheet where you're listing each option and what it might cost you in terms of taxes or interest rate, any of those things?
I do have the nerdy spreadsheet, but no, I have not taken the next step to really see the tax implications or exactly where I want to draw this money from. I just want to minimize the tax bill from potentially tapping into these accounts that in theory are for long-term growth, but this is obviously a major life change and I know that having access to this is definitely a time to use it.
And I think running those numbers will provide you a lot of clarity. So I would say add some meat to that spreadsheet. See what the bottom line is for each option. And David, how are you thinking about timing here, too? Are you planning to move in the next few months? Are you planning to put your house maybe up for rent soon? How are you considering that?
As a teacher, the goal is to obviously finish out the school year, which for me here would be the end of May. I wouldn't need to, for my job, I would have a nice about two months, June and July, to get out there. But I just think the logistics of the move are also the most daunting.
It's just should we hire professional movers, use a service like pods or U-Haul, or we also consider just selling a lot of our belongings and starting fresh. I did get a quote from a few of these options, but I'm just curious if anyone else on the call has an idea for where should we start in terms of physically getting a four or five bedroom house with two small children 2,000 miles away.
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