You are moving and your previous owner-occupied flat becomes vacant. A potential rental income sounds attractive; at the same time a sale or deliberately keeping it might better suit your next life phase. Our editorial recommendation for Austria and Germany: first decide between these routes before you publish one of them as a finished offer. Legal and tax consequences must be clarified separately for the relevant country and property.
Give each option a concrete purpose
Write down what you will need the flat for in future. Do you want to generate ongoing income, return yourself within a foreseeable time, free up funds for another purchase, or are you simply missing one decisive piece of information right now? Do not formulate a general sentence such as properties should be kept; instead state the purpose for your household.
A provisional decision to keep also needs a reason and a next decision date. Otherwise lack of a decision becomes an ongoing effort whose purpose is no longer reviewed. This organisational deadline does not require a legal permission for vacancy. Whether local regulations, contractual obligations or grant conditions must be observed should be determined separately.
Use the same starting point for all routes
First gather condition, existing financing, available documents and known upcoming works. Use the same point in time for the comparison. It would be misleading to burden the sale with all outstanding renovations while calculating the rental as if the flat were already ready to move into without further expenditure.
Record for each option which details still need to be reliably obtained. An unverified rental expectation is not secured income, an advertised price is not a sale proceeds already achieved. The general budgeting method of the Finanznavi compares actual income and expenses and separates today’s overview from future planning. [BUDGET] The following comparison editorially applies this principle to your usage decision, without predicting yields or market prices.
Consider renting as an ongoing task
Think about which tasks you can do yourself and what supervision you would actually organise. This includes careful preparation, answering enquiries, ongoing coordination and dealing with unplanned events. A person who only accompanies a viewing does not automatically replace a permanent management arrangement.
Also check whether your later desire to use the flat yourself fits legally and in time with the planned rental. A self-chosen return date must not simply be scheduled as a guaranteed end of tenancy. Ascertainable costs for supervision and necessary works should be included in the calculation as well as periods without confirmed income. The decision is not economically sensible simply because you initially do many things yourself.
When selling, consider the available amount and the new housing solution
A sale could make tied-up capital available for other purposes. For that you need an appropriate process including financing, handling and the actual availability of the money. Allocate openly costs still to be determined and possible obligations, instead of already planning the full hoped-for sale sum for a new purchase.
Also consider what the sale will remove from your future: a personal option to return or a use that is important to you. This personal assessment is permissible, but should not be presented as market value or financial return. High emotional significance does not, conversely, answer whether your ongoing household can bear the continued commitment.
Example: The money is needed earlier than the rent helps
For example, a household fictitiously needs €12.000 for another firmly planned project. The flat to be vacated would first have to be prepared for a still-to-be-confirmed amount. A possible monthly rent would not make the needed sum available by the intended early date. The household therefore examines sale and other financing options, instead of mentally treating the first month’s rent as immediately available capital. This does not constitute a general recommendation to sell flats for short-term expenses.
Make a decision with verifiable conditions
Finally note the chosen route and the conditions that must be met before the next step. For renting these can be the clarified legal framework and reliable supervision; for selling a viable new housing and financing plan. For provisional keeping the purpose, ongoing cash needs and the next review date should be specified. You do not have to solve every future question today. But you should be able to recognise which decision you are actually making and which open prerequisites it still carries.