Where do you live after you sell your home? My home is "worth" over 50% more than I paid for it, but if I had to rent, I'd end up paying nearly double what I pay in mortgage.
If the market turns suddenly your home is not worth 50% more than you paid for it and renting looks a lot nicer! (In that situation rents will come down too.)
I don't know. Seemed like rent bumped up after the 2008 recession, because a bunch of people foreclosed on their homes and were forced to start renting who otherwise wouldn't. It hasn't really dropped much at all.
http://www.statista.com/statistics/200223/median-apartment-r...
But if the market turns suddenly it's too late to sell.
So do I sell today and "hope" that the market will tank and rents will soon drop lower than my mortgage and that I don't eat up most of the profit from selling in extra rent payments?
Yes, that's what the OP suggested. 50% gain is pretty big and a capital gain from a home is nicely tax advantaged. You could also look to move somewhere else, that 50% gain is probably enough to buy a place outright in many other places.
Of course, I lose around 8 - 10% of the home selling price to selling expenses, and pay 20% capital gains taxes on the profit, so that 50% gain is not as large as it sounds.
And sure, I could quit my job, sell the house, do a 1031 exchange and buy in a cheaper area to reduce the tax burden, but purposely quitting my well paying job and moving to somewhere that jobs are less plentiful sounds like a bad idea if I'm worried that we're facing a recession. Not to mention how disruptive it is to my family: "Hey honey, we're both going to quit our jobs and move the kids to a new school because the bubble might be bursting".
Recommending that people homes now and move out just sounds like trying to time the market, and may not leave them any better off. Silicon Valley still still have a lot of jobs even after an economic downturn, some small town here homes are cheap may not.
> Of course, I lose around 8 - 10% of the home selling price to selling expenses, and pay 20% capital gains taxes on the profit, so that 50% gain is not as large as it sounds.
Put it up for more than you think it's worth yourself (no agent) and see what happens, maybe you'll get lucky! As for the cap gains, that's the best part of a house:
> If you have a capital gain from the sale of your main home, you may qualify to exclude up to $250,000 of that gain from your income. You may qualify to exclude up to $500,000 of that gain if you file a joint return with your spouse.
It's a really good deal. You can even hedge and buy S&P index shares (SPY) with the proceeds of your house. If you're wrong and things continue going great you'll make a killing on the stock. If not it's a lot easier to get out of than the house!