You're moving on orders and you own the house. Cash it out and invest the equity, or keep it as a rental and sell later? Here's the after-tax answer.
Sell, and your equity is freed to invest however you like. Keep it, and that equity stays locked in the house — earning appreciation and paying down principal, but also exposed to vacancy, maintenance, a tenant you manage from across the country, and a tax bill most landlords don't see coming.
This tool compares the two head-to-head: sell now and invest the proceeds vs. keep it, rent it, and sell at the end of your hold — both projected to total wealth, after taxes including depreciation recapture and the military home-sale exclusion.
No one can forecast future appreciation, rents, vacancy, maintenance, or tax law — and any one of them can flip this result. The biggest swings come from home appreciation and your investment return, which are unknowable. Treat this as a structured way to compare two paths, not a guarantee of either.
A rental's monthly cash flow is what's left after every cost — not just the mortgage.
Your wealth under each path if you sold at the end of that year. Where the lines cross is when keeping overtakes selling.
Depreciation lowers your rental tax now, but it comes back as recapture at sale — taxed even when the home-sale exclusion erases the rest of the gain.
How far the verdict swings when each variable moves. The biggest bar is what your decision hinges on.
📍 NEXT STEPS
→ Rent vs Buy Calculator — Buying at the new station too? Run that decision before you commit. → TSP Calculator — See what the freed equity could grow to if you sell and invest it. → VA Home Loan Calculator — Sizing a second VA loan on remaining entitlement. → PCS Move Calculator — DLA, per diem, TLE, and PPM for the move itself.Civilians who become accidental landlords usually live nearby and can self-manage. You're PCSing — often hundreds or thousands of miles away, sometimes overseas — so renting your home almost always means paying a manager, eating longer vacancies between tenants, and handling repairs you can't see. Those costs are real, and this calculator bakes them in.
The tax side cuts both ways. Renting lets you depreciate the building, sheltering income while you hold. But depreciation recapture claws part of that back at sale, taxed up to 25% even if the rest of your gain is excluded. The upside: the military extension of the home-sale exclusion lets you suspend the 2-of-5-year residency test for up to 10 years of qualified duty, so you can rent for years and still shelter the bulk of your gain — an advantage civilians lose after three years out of the house.
And the equity itself isn't free to keep working in the house. Sell, and you could put it in the market — see the TSP Calculator for what that compounding looks like. Keep it, and you're betting the home's appreciation plus rental cash flow beats that. This tool makes the bet explicit and after-tax.
It comes down to whether your equity works harder in the house or in the market. A property that bleeds cash each month and barely appreciates usually favors selling and investing the proceeds; a low-rate mortgage in a strong rental market can favor keeping. This tool projects total wealth both ways, after taxes, so you can see the gap for your numbers.
Renting lets you depreciate the building over 27.5 years, lowering taxable rental income. That also lowers your basis, so at sale the portion of gain equal to the depreciation you took is taxed at your ordinary rate, capped at 25% — and it's owed even when the home-sale exclusion erases the rest of the gain.
Usually yes. Service members can suspend the 2-of-5-year residency test for up to 10 years of qualified extended duty, so you can rent for years and still exclude up to $250k single / $500k married of gain. Recapture is never excluded, though.
It can. A VA loan ties up entitlement while it's open, which may cap your zero-down power at the next station. You may still have enough remaining entitlement for a second VA loan — check before assuming you can buy again with nothing down.
Not automatically, but you should know the number. If rent doesn't cover the full carrying cost, you feed the property every month and bet appreciation makes up for it. The calculator shows that monthly bleed so the bet is explicit.
Independent, official sources:
📎 IRS Pub 527 — Residential Rental Property (depreciation)📎 IRS Pub 523 — Selling Your Home (exclusion & military rule)📎 VA Home Loans & Entitlement (VA.gov)📍 This is an estimate, not tax advice. Depreciation, recapture, and passive-loss rules get complicated fast. Before you decide, talk to a tax pro and your installation's financial counselors — both free and confidential:
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