What if I have to sell in two years?
At a flat price, you lose money. On our example duplex, a sale in year two means bringing about $16,881 to closing to pay off the loan, after selling costs. That is on top of the $28,800 in cash it took to buy.
WHAT MOST PEOPLE ARE NEVER TOLD
It costs money to get in and more to get out. Selling takes about 8 percent of the price, as a rule of thumb. And the first payments retire little of the loan: $6,233 in year one on the example.
The example is a $480,000 duplex in Texas, bought with an FHA loan and $28,800 in cash. Sell it for the same $480,000 and this is what closing looks like, after selling costs:
- Year one: you owe $23,473.
- Year two: you owe $16,881.
- Year three: you owe $9,911.
- Year four: you owe $2,540.
- Year five: you keep $5,254.
So year five is when a flat-price sale stops costing you at closing. The $28,800 you put in does not come back until year eight. A rising price brings those years closer. A falling price pushes them out.
Selling is not the only way out. Once you have lived there the year the loan asks for, you can usually move and rent both homes. In the example the two rents cover about 70 percent of the payment, and you cover the rest.
GOOD TO KNOW
If you may move within two or three years and would not keep the home as a rental, keep renting. Get rich slow needs years, and a forced sale early is where it costs the most. A price that falls makes every figure here worse.
Yours is a little different. They all are.
Tell us what you are looking at and what you are trying to do. We answer with the numbers on your situation.
Free. No credit pull.
WHERE THIS COMES FROM
- Series Homes worked example: the assumptions are printed on the ten-year page. Selling costs of 8 percent of the price are a rule of thumb, not a quote.
- Fannie Mae Selling Guide B2-1.1-01, Occupancy Types (11/04/2026)
- HUD Handbook 4000.1 (FHA), Occupancy Types, section II.A.1.b.iii(A) (page 159, revised 8/12/2026)
Researched and written by Series Homes. Checked against its sources on . Lending rules change. This page is general information, not a loan offer or legal or tax advice.