Is it better to sell now or continue renting a house you own?

My grandpa is retiring and he doesn't want to manage this condo/duplex that is only worth $130-150k. It was bought over 10 years ago at 165k.

He is sick of dead beats and bad tenants and doesn't want to manage it.

He wants me to sell it for him or manage the house for him (obviously i get a good %).

So what is the best play? sell now or rent it out (if I were to manage it, i would want the least amount of trouble so i definitely want perfect tenants and no dead beats)

personally, if I were to rent it out, I definitely don't want headaches. but if i were to sell the house now, it would need A LOT of work because last tenants were awful lol.

well the good news is you won't have to deal with capital gains taxes if you sell since it is worth less now than what you originally paid for it.

the fact is there is no way to find "perfect" tenants and even if you think they are in the beginning you really have no idea until they move in and have lived there awhile.

you said the house needs "A LOT" of work in its current condition so if you don't spend the money upgrading it now and just try to rent it out don't u think high quality tenants will look at other properties that are properly maintained/upgraded? you might be stuck with deadbeats or otherwise undesirable tenants simply because of the current poor condition of the property.

how much can it rent for in its current condition? how much more can you rent if you spend 5k+ upgrading it?

what are the HOA payments per month? if this property rents for less than 1.2k/mo and has a sizable HOA's and its in poor condition i'd probably just sell it and look for something else. assuming the property is paid off or close to being paid off your grandpa likely has a good chunk of equity that he can use for another better property or other type of investment if he sells.

Current condition can probably still rent out for $800-1100. No HOA payments. Current condition not horrible but outside pavement, deck and paint all kind of suck. inside is not as bad but not great either; a lot of things could be made new.

Grandpa kind of want to sell to pay off another loan he has that is basically interest free so its nothing urgent though. But he just wants to make the best BUSINESS/time decision.

I think you can probably sell it without putting too much work into it. People tend to overestimate the benefits of making improvements to a place in order to sell it. You're already looking at a place that is going to sell for only $150,000. What's the point of going through the hassle of putting $10,000 of repairs into it, when you can just sell it for $140,000 and let the buyer deal with it? There's something to be said for curb appeal, but the reality is that the price is going to be mostly determined by things you can't can't change, like location and size.

Call a realtor who can give you a CMA, or pay for an appraisal so you can get a better idea of how much it's actually worth. Is it a condo, or a duplex? There's a big difference.

If you don't want pointless drama in your life, being a landlord is not for you.

source: I'm a landlord

(anyone that says, just screen better or something along those lines, is super naive, has probably never done it...or at most owned like a duplex...so don't listen to them)