Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open.

Should I sell a 2nd home, or rent it out?
So here are some of the risks of renting a property: Plus the "normal" risk of losing your job, health, etc., but those are going to be bad whether you had the rental or not, so those aren't really a factor. Can you beat the average gain of the S&P 500 over 10 years?  Probably, but there's significant risk that something bad will happen that could cause the whole thing to come crashing down. How many months can you go without the rental income before you can't pay all three mortgages? Is that a risk you're willing to take for $5,000 per year or less?   If the second home was paid for with cash, AND you could pay the first mortgage with your income, then you'd be in a much better situation to have a rental property.  The fact that the property is significantly leveraged means that any unfortunate event could put you in a serious financial bind, and makes me say that you should sell the rental, get your first mortgage paid down as soon as possible, and start saving cash to buy rental property if that's what you want to invest in. I think we could go at least 24 months with no rental income Well that means that you have about $36k in an emergency fund, which makes me a little more comfortable with a rental, but that's still a LOT of debt spread across two houses.   Another way to think about it:  If you just had your main house with a $600k mortgage (and no HELOC), would you take out a $76k HELOC and buy the second house with a $200k mortgage?