I agree that hold and wait will probably work well. I have about 870k in low interest mortgage debt on them, and if the value of the property grows 4% a year with the leverage the 870k in equity grows about $70,000 a year for an 8% annual return plus the small profit from renting themselves over the mortgage/maintenance brings that up to almost 10%.
I’ve been giving some thought of moving to SF since about half of my work is there, that’s the main reason I might sell, otherwise I could not afford to buy there. Hard to really say for sure, but the return on real estate might end up being higher there too. The problem is there already has been much more appreciation there than here. SD and SF both had rapid appreciation 2011 to 2013, but we slowed down after that and SF did not.
If I moved there I’d probably get something like these:
