Cash flow implications of converting primary mortgaged residence to rental
The rental income is indeed taxable income, but you reduce the taxable portion of it by deducting expenses (including mortgage interest, maintenance, insurance, HOA, real estate tax, and of course depreciation). Due to the depreciation, you may end up breaking even, or having very little taxable income. Note that when you sell the property, your basis is reduced by the depreciation you were allowed to deduct (even if you haven't deducted it for whatever reason), and also the personal residence exclusion might no longer be applicable - i.e.: you'll have to pay capital gains tax. You will not be able to deduct a loss though if you sell now, so it may be better to depreciate it as a rental, rather then sell at a loss that won't affect your taxes. Also, consider the fact that the basis for the depreciation is not the basis you currently have in the property (because you're under water). You have to remember that when calculating the taxes. This is not a tax advice, and you should seek a professional help. "You are assuming 100% occupancy and 100% rent collection.  This is unrealistic.  You could get lucky and find that long term tenant with great credit that always pays their bills... but in reality that person usually buys a home they do not rent long term.  So you will need to be prepared for periods of no renters and periods of non payment.  The expenses here I would expect could wipe out more than you can make in ""profit"" based on your numbers. Have you checked to find out what the insurance on a rental property is?  I am guessing it will go up probably 200-500 a year possibly more depending on coverage.  You will need a different type of insurance for rental property. Have you checked with your mortgage provider to make sure that you can convert to a rental property?   Some mortgages (mine is one) restrict the use of the home from being a rental property.  You may be required to refinance your home which could cost you more, in addition if you are under water it will be hard to find a new financier willing to write that mortgage with anything like reasonable terms. You are correct you would be taking on a new expense in rental.  It is non deductible, and the IRS knows this well.   As Littleadv's answer stated you can deduct some expenses from your rental property. I am not sure that you will have a net wash or loss when you add those expenses.  If you do then you have a problem since you have a business losing money.  This does not even address the headaches that come with being a landlord. By my quick calculations if you want to break even your rental property should be about 2175/Month. This accounts for 80% occupancy and 80% rental payment.  If you get better than that you should make a bit of a profit... dont worry im sure the house will find a way to reclaim it." You have some of the math right, but are missing a few things. Here's what I can offer - if I leave anything out, someone please expand or clarify. Rental income can be reduced by mortgage interest and maintenance costs (as you mentioned), but also by property tax payments, association fees, insurance costs, landlord expenses, and depreciation. Note that if you don't live in the property for 3 years, you'll have to pay capital gains tax if/when you sell the house. You can live in it again for 2 of the last 5 years to avoid this. Many people recommend only assuming you will get 10 months of rental income a year, to account for transitions between tenants, difficult in finding new tenants, and the occasional deadbeat tenant. This also adds a buffer for unexpected problems you need to fix in the house. If you can't at least break even on 10 months of income a year, consider the risk. I think there are also some cases where you need to repay depreciation amounts that you have deducted, but I don't know the details. Renting out a house can be fun and profitable, but it's very far from a sure thing. I'd always recommend preparation and caution, and of course talking to professionals about the finances, accounting, and lease-writing. Good luck!
It increases mobility for homeowners. I don't know what tax jurisdiction you are in but you'll tend to get a break on taxes if you are selling your primary residence.  For example, if you were to relocate to another location and it was taxed normally, then it will trigger a tax bill on a home, even though you were going to repurpose those funds for a similar home. If the mortgage is against your primary residence, then the only part that's (probably) deductible is the mortgage interest.  If you pay down your loan principal faster, then all other things being equal you'll get less of a tax deduction, because you'll accrue less interest in the months after you throw a big chunk at the principal (the principal is less, so the interest is less). But don't worry; that's all right!  It's a tax deduction, so your actual tax savings will be only a fraction of the interest you paid, so at the end of the day you'll be saving yourself money. The issue here is that the transaction (your funds to her account) looks very similar to the rent payments which you plan to make in the future. Those rental payments (if deemed to be commercial) would normally be subject to tax. Consider the scenario where rather than an up front $5000, and $5000 over 2 years, you paid her $10000, and paid no rent. That might be an attempt to avoid paying tax. A commercial transaction can't be re-labeled as a gift just based on your election - the transaction needs to be considered as a whole. However, an interest free, unsecured loan connected with you paying rent at market rate would be (depending on local laws) simply foolish (to some extent). I don't think you are able to structure the transaction as a joint purchase (since the mortgage will prevent her from allocating a part of the property to you). Its also likely that you can live in her house and contribute an adequate amount to the household costs without creating a taxable income for her. For example in the UK, up to ~£4000 pa rental income generated from the property in which you reside does not need to be declared. You need to identify the scenarios where your particular arrangement could be imagined as resulting in a taxable or potentially taxable event - then make sure you are not avoiding those events just by choosing how you label the events. First the good news: based on the time involved, and the amount of potential profits; you will not owe any tax on the sale of the house no matter which option you pick. Now the details. When determining if there are any capital gains the IRS cares about the difference between the sale price and the purchase price. The amount of the loan, the final balance of the loan, or the lack of loan don't factor into the calculation. To complicate matters the government does factor into the equation any improvements you have made to the house (like a new deck) and the cost of buying and selling the house (real estate agents). If a single person has less than 250K in capital gains and has used the house as their main residence for 2 of the the previous 5 years their tax is zero. For a couple the tax free gain is $500K. For your situation since the sale price is less than $250K, the capital gains will also be less than $250K. You do have one potential area of concern. If the house is worth significantly more than $150K, the government could claim that the difference between what you charged your parents and what you could have charged was a gift. Assuming that there are no other factors that you didn't include in the original question it would appear that you will not face any taxes. Regarding your two options, neither will impact the taxes. Though draining your savings or investments could make it difficult to meet an emergency during the time between the sending of the $95K to the mortgage company and the closing on the deal with your parents. If the money came from retirement account it could have an even greater impact on your taxes and retirement situation. It might some but I'd wager it pushes the short-term rental pricing down (like hotels) while pushing the long-term rental and housing market prices up.    If landlords can make way more in short-term rentals they are going to do that and limit the supply of long-term.  The tourism sector may have increased revenue but by what extent I don't know.  I'd wager that exploding rent and housing prices will negate any benefits for most residents and may end up costing them much more.  This is why I think you should only be able to do it on your primary residence.  Unless you want to be regulated like a hotel because if you have short-term rentals that you don't reside in, that is effectively what you are.  Not being regulated the same as a hotel at that point only gives you an unfair loophole advantage to other short-term rentals. I'd recommend you use an online tax calculator to see the effect it will have. To your comment with @littleadv, there's FMV, agreed, but there's also a rate below that. One that's a bit lower than FMV, but it's a discount for a tenant who will handle certain things on their own. I had an arm's length tenant, who was below FMV, I literally never met him. But, our agreement through a realtor, was that for any repairs, I was not required to arrange or meet repairmen. FMV is not a fixed number, but a bit of a range.  If this is your first rental, you need to be aware of the requirement to take depreciation. Simply put, you separate your cost into land and house. The house value gets depreciated by 1/27.5 (i.e. you divide the value by 27.5 and that's taken as depreciation each year. You may break even on cash flow, the rent paying the mortgage, property tax, etc, but the depreciation might still produce a loss. This isn't optional. It flows to your tax return, and is limited to $25K/yr. Further, if your adjusted gross income  is over $100K, the allowed loss is phased out over the next $50K of income. i.e. each $1000 of AGI reduces the allowed loss by $500. The losses you can't take are carried forward, until you use them to offset profit each year, or sell the property.  If you offer numbers, you'll get a more detailed answer, but this is the general overview. In general, if you are paying tax, you are doing well, running a profit even after depreciation. When you sell your primary residence, you are required to capitalize any loss or gain at that point; you do not carry over your loss or gain (as you might in an investment property).  As such, the timing of the purchase of the next house is not relevant in this discussion: you gained however much you gained already.  This changed from the other (rollover) method in 1997 (see this bankrate article for more details.) However, as discussed in IRS Tax Topic 701, you can exclude up to $250,000 (single or filing separately) or $500,000 (married filing jointly) of gain if it is your primary residence and meets a few requirements (mostly, that you owned it for at least 2 years in the past 5 years, and similarly used it as your main home for at least 2 years of the past 5 years).   So given you reported 25% gain, as long as your house is under a million dollars or so, you're fine (and if it's over a million dollars, you probably should be paying a CPA for this stuff). For California state tax, it looks like it is the same (see this Turbotax forum answer for a good explanation and links to this California Franchise Tax Board guide which confirms it: For sale or exchanges after May 6, 1997, federal law allows   an exclusion of gain on the sale of a personal residence in   the amount of $250,000 ($500,000 if married filing jointly).   The taxpayer must have owned and occupied the residence   as a principal residence for at least 2 of the 5 years before the   sale. California conforms to this provision. However, California   taxpayers who served in the Peace Corps during the 5 year   period ending on the date of the sale may reduce the 2 year   period by the period of service, not to exceed 18 months. "Short Answer: You're going to end up paying taxes on it. Despite the home being your primary residence, you don't meet the ownership test, and it isn't noted that you have had a change in employment, health, or other unforeseen circumstances that are ""forcing"" you to sell. Otherwise, you could qualify for a reduced maximum exclusion that might allow you to walk away without owing taxes, or with a reduced tax bill. You can't even do a 1031 exchange to re-invest into a new primary residence. You should check with a tax professional to see what adjustments you can make to the cost basis of the property to minimize your reported net profits. During the 5-year period prior to the sale, you must have: These periods do not necessarily have to coincide (You don't to live in it as your main house for 2 consecutive years, just 2 years worth of time of the last 5)." There are those who are knowledgable in real estate who offer rules of thumb: Don't pay more that 50X the rent for the house. Here, $972 x 50 is $48600. Assume half the rent goes to expenses. So from $972, you net $486, and after that mortgage, you have $111 in profit. Zillow usually assumes 20% down, here $20K. So you are seeing a 6.67% return on your 20K. (Plus appreciation and principal paydown.)  For the record, I just bought a 3 family, under renovation now. Expecting total cost to be $160K, and total rent $2500. I missed ratio a by a bit, but $1250 to go toward a $120K mortgage works out fine. $550 profit/mo on the 25% down ($40K). (By the way, a turnover of tenants can cost (a) a month of no rent, (b) a cost to the real estate agent, if you use one, and the cost to paint/repair. This is generally considered 10%. So if the 50% of rent seemed high, here's 10 of it.) "This is a great question, considering that all of your expenses including PITA, Maintenance, etc. are paid by a tenant, your cash flow is $0. Most people would stop and assume your investment is not performing and your only chance at making money is through appreciation. Your question eliminates appreciation so here are the returns you would get on your investment. The math will probably surprise many that you are actually earning a return on your money.   Annual Return = [((Future Value)/(Initial Investment))^((Periods per Year)/(Number of Periods) -1]*100 % 5.51% = [($200,000/$40,000)^(12/360)-1]*100 % As Chris Rea commented: The subtlety that some would miss is that while ""income covers expenses exactly"", embedded in the ""expenses"" is actually a repayment of the loan principal (and technically, that's not an ""expense"") so not all of the income is ""lost"" covering the ""expenses"". That repayment of principal portion of the rental income constitutes the return on the original capital invested." You could consider turning your current place into a Rental Property. This is more easily done with a fixed rate loan, and you said you have an ARM. The way it would work: If you can charge enough rent to cover your current mortgage plus the interest-difference on your new mortgage, then the income from your rental property can effectively lower the interest rate on your new home.   By keeping your current low rate, month-after-month, you'll pay the market rate on your new home, but you'll also receive rental income from your previous home to offset the increased cost. Granted, a lot of your value will be locked up in equity in your former home, and not be easily accessible (except through a HELOC or similar), but if you can afford it, it is a good possibility. The other thing that you may or may not be considering is the fact that when she moves or otherwise ceases to live in that condo, you could then rent the unit out to others at the inflation adjusted rent price for the area. You could continue to build equity in the property for a fraction of the cost, and it would continue to be a tax write-off once your mother is not living there. While you have more maintenance and repairs cost when renters live there (typically, anyway), if inflation continues to carry on at about 4-5%, then you would be potentially renting the unit out at between $2,500 and $2,850 by the 10th year from now. Obviously, there are other considerations to be made as well, but those are some additional factors that don't seem to have been addressed in any of the above comments. There are a few ways to look at this question. Assumptions. Per the original post's assumptions, this answer: In other words, if the owner paid the mortgage on its original schedule, the deal could boil down to a $ 40,000 up-front payment, in exchange for $ 200,000 of equity after 30 years.  Or the deal could boil down to a $ 40,000 up-front payment, in exchange for a $ 810.70 monthly payment starting in 30 years. While the owner is paying down the mortgage, the return on equity is the principal payment divided by the equity.  The principal payment is the net rent minus non-financing costs and interest, so it is actually a profit. The initial return on equity is 6.321 % APR, or 6.507 % APY.  This is calculated by dividing the $ 210.70 monthly principal payment by the initial $ 40,000 equity, and converting from monthly return to annual return. After 30 years, the return on equity is 4.864 % APR, or 4.974 % APY.  This is calculated by dividing the $ 810.70 monthly cash flow (which is no longer reduced by mortgage payments) by the $ 200,000 equity after 30 years, and converting from monthly return to annual return. The cap rate is the same as the return on equity in the absence of debt.  In this example, 4.864 % APR, or 4.974 % APY. The return on equity declines from 6.507 % APY initially to 4.974 % APY after 30 years. This is because the cap rate exceeds the note rate (4.974 % APY vs. 4.594 % APY), and the leverage decreases from 5x to 1x. The weighted average compound annual growth rate of the equity during the 30 years is 5.511 % APY.  Per the original poster's answer, this is computed by taking the 30th root of the 5-fold increase in equity.  Because the owner made no extra principal payments (besides those already discussed), the relevant amounts are the initial $ 40,000 owner payment and the final $ 200,000 owner equity.  5.511 % APY corresponds to a 5.377 % APR. The internal rate of return if the owner never sells can be computed by treating the deal as a $ 40,000 up-front payment, in exchange for an $ 810.70 monthly payment starting in 30 years.  The internal rate of return (IRR) is not a very useful number, because it assumes that you can somehow reinvest the eventual dividends at the same rate.  In this example, the IRR is 5.172 % APR, or 5.296  % APY.  In this example, the IRR is calculated by (iteratively) finding an interest rate for which (initial investment) * (1 + IRR) ^ (number periods before dividends start) = (periodic dividend) / (IRR - growth rate of dividend).  For example: $ 40,000 * (1.004309687)^360 = $ 810.70 / (0.004309687 - 0) = $ 188,111 I then converted the 0.431 % monthly IRR to an annual IRR. The deal can be thought of as a return on equity, plus a return on paying down the mortgage. When computing the return from paying down the mortgage, the initial equity is irrelevant.  It does not matter whether you start with a $ 160,000 mortgage on a $ 160,000 property, a $ 160,000 mortgage on a $ 200,000 property, or a $ 160,000 mortgage on a $ 1,000,000 property.  All that matters is the note rate on the mortgage, which is the applicable compound interest rate. The return on paying down the mortgage equals the note rate of the mortgage.  For a 4.5% note rate, this works out to a 4.594% annual percentage yield (APY). You can confirm this by looking at your amortization schedule.  Suppose you have a $ 160,000 mortgage with a fixed 4.5% APR note rate for 360 months.  Your monthly payment is $ 810.70.  In the first month, $ 600 goes toward interest, and $ 210.70 reduces the principal.  In other words, the $ 210.70 principal payment eliminated the need for a $ 810.70 payment 30 years later.  Notice that: . $ 210.70 * (1 + 0.045 / 12)^360 = $ 210.70 * (1.00375)^360 = $ 210.70 * 3.8477 = $ 810.71 which is within rounding error of $ 810.70. The interest rate is 3/8 % per month, which is an APR of 4.5%, and an APY of 4.594 %. "Do you now own your new home, or are you renting?  This is a classic case of a mortgage ready to blow up. These 7/1 interest only would have a low rate, say 3%. So on $200K, the payment is $500/mo, but no principal paydown. Even if the rate were still 3% (it won't be) the 23 yr amortization means a payment of $1004 after the 7 years end. At 4%, it's $1109. 5%, $1221. I would take this all into account as you decide what to do. If you now own a new house, you should consider the morally questionable walk-away. I believe you were sold an unethical product. mb wrote ""shoot up considerably."" This is still an understatement. A product whose payment is certain to double in a fixed time is 'bad.' 'Bad' in the biblical sense. You have no obligation to keep any deal with the devil, which is exactly what you have.  There are some banks offering FHA products that might help you. I just received an offer from the bank holding a mortgage on my rental property. It's 4.5% for a refinance up to 125% of current value. There's a cost of $1800, but I owe so little, and am paying it off faster than the time left, I'm not bothering. You may benefit from such a program, but I'd still question if you can make a go of a house that even 2% underwater. Do some math, and see if you started now with a 30 year loan how the numbers work out.  (Forgive my soapbox stance on this. There are those who criticize the strategic defaulters. I think you fall into a group of innocent victims who were sold a product that was nothing less than a financial time bomb. I am very curious to know the original ""interest only"" rate, and the index/margin for the rate upon adjustment. If you include the original balance, I can tell you the exact payments based on the new rates pretty easily.)" Think carefully about the added expenses.  It may still make sense, but it probably won't be as cheap as you are thinking.  In addition to the mortgage and property taxes, there is also insurance and building maintenance and repairs. Appliances, carpets, and roofs need to be replaced periodically.  Depending on the area of the country there is lawn maintenance and now removal. You need to make sure you can cover the expenses if you are without a tenant for 6 months or longer.  When tenants change, there is usually some cleaning and painting that needs to be done. You can deduct the mortgage interest and property taxes on your part of the building.  You need to claim any rent as income, but can deduct the other part of the mortgage interest and taxes as an expense.  You can also deduct building maintenance and repairs on the rental portion of the building.  Some improvements need to be depreciated over time (5-27 years).  You also need to depreciate the cost of the rental portion of the building.  This basically means that you get a deduction each year, but lower the cost basis of the building so you owe more capital gains taxes when you sell. If you do this, I would get a professional to do your taxes at least the first year.  Its not hard once you see it done, but there are a lot of details and complications that you want to get right.