Tarrant County · Owner Guide

Should I sell my house or rent it out in Texas?

By Andrew ChavisUpdated November 9, 202610 min read
The Short Answer

Run two numbers and compare them: what the house nets if sold, and what it nets each month if rented after every cost, including the costs owners forget. The market sets the first half of each number and your own situation sets the rest. In Tarrant and Parker counties, our November 9, 2026 pull of the MLS showed 943 single-family closings at a median $365,000 and 39 days on market, while 1,035 listings ended without selling; the same pull showed 663 signed leases at a median $2,200 and 31 days on market. What the market cannot see is your mortgage rate, your basis, and your timeline, and three rules change with the decision: the homestead exemption and its 10 percent cap, the federal home-sale exclusion with its two-of-five-years test, and your insurance once the house is vacant or rented. This page is general information with our own market pulls, not legal, tax or investment advice.

What Selling Looks Like Right Now

Our own pull of the MLS on November 9, 2026, for Tarrant and Parker counties, single-family: 943 closings between October 8 and November 9 at a median $365,000, $183 per square foot, 39 days on market before contract. In the same window 1,035 single-family listings ended without a sale (expired, cancelled or withdrawn), so 48 percent of the single-family listings that ended in the window ended in a closing and 52 percent did not; in Tarrant County alone it was 848 sold against 856 that did not, 50 percent, with the ones that did not sell carrying a median 76 days on market against 38 for the ones that did. Read that as the condition of the exit door: the median house that closed went under contract in about five to six weeks, and the median listing that ended without a sale had been on the market twice as long when it ended. What the sale nets after commission, title, taxes and the rest is a separate arithmetic; our page on what it costs to sell a house in Tarrant County walks each line.

What Renting Looks Like Right Now

The same November 9 pull on the lease side (signed leases through November 9): 663 single-family leases signed across Tarrant and Parker at a median $2,200 a month, $1.27 per square foot, 31 days on market. The leases that did not sign tell the same story as the sales that did not close: 80 lease listings expired or were cancelled in the window, and their median asking rent was $2,500 against the $2,200 that actually signed. For the Saginaw and northwest Fort Worth corridor specifically, RentCast's 76179 single-family rent median was $2,090 on November 9 with rental days on market of about 45. A rent figure is a market number; the figure that decides your case is that rent after every cost, which is the next section.

The Carrying-Cost Ledger, Line by Line

Start from the market rent and subtract until nothing is left out. Vacancy: our own lease history shows the gap between one lease ending and the next starting runs about two months once make-ready and marketing are counted (AppFolio lease-history export, our managed book, July 16, 2026); so a two-year lease followed by a turn runs about 26 calendar months with 24 of them paying rent. Management, if you hire it: our published rate is 10 percent of collected rent plus a leasing fee of one month's rent, 70 percent with a two-year agreement. Repairs and capital items: a number you set from the age of the roof, the HVAC and the water heater; the Texas repair duty in Property Code 92.052 does not wait for a convenient month. Insurance: a landlord policy priced by your carrier rather than the homeowner policy you have now. Property tax: the change when the homestead comes off, covered below. On the other side, your mortgage principal, interest, taxes and insurance as they are today. As an illustration only, with our market figures and our published fee card, over one 26-month cycle of a two-year lease followed by a two-month turn: rent collected for 24 months at $2,200 is $52,800; management at 10 percent of collected rent is $5,280; a leasing fee of 70 percent of one month's rent under a two-year agreement is $1,540; that leaves $45,980 over 26 calendar months, about $1,768 a month before repairs, landlord insurance and any tax change. Your own payment, your own reserve and your own quotes replace every one of those lines; the point of the ledger is that nothing is left off it.

The Homestead Changes When the House Becomes a Rental

A Texas homestead carries four tax levers, and renting the whole house out can move all of them. The school district exemption of $140,000 of value (Tax Code 11.13(b)), and the additional $60,000 for an owner 65 or older or disabled (11.13(c)), apply to a residence homestead; under 11.13(k) renting a portion of the house does not by itself end the homestead, but the exemption does not apply to the value of a portion used primarily for purposes incompatible with your own residential use, and whether renting the entire house ends the homestead turns on the temporary-absence test in 11.13(l), which is the appraisal district's call to make. The 10 percent limit on yearly increases in appraised value (23.23, plus new improvements) expires January 1 of the first year the house no longer qualifies, so the district may appraise a long-held house at market value in that first year, subject to any other limit that then applies; on a house held many years that can cost more than the exemption does. For an owner 65 or older, the school-tax ceiling in 11.26 attaches to the residence homestead and goes with it. And an exemption kept improperly can be back-assessed for up to five years with interest (11.43(i)). For non-homestead real property under the statute's value limit, the 20 percent circuit-breaker limit on yearly increases in 23.231, plus new improvements, applies through the end of 2026 and expires after that unless the Legislature extends it. Our page on what happens to the homestead exemption when you rent your house in Texas has the mechanics; the practical step is to ask the Tarrant Appraisal District in writing before the lease is signed.

The Federal Exclusion Has a Clock

The IRS lets a seller exclude up to $250,000 of gain on the sale of a main home, or $500,000 on a joint return, if the seller owned the home for at least two years of the five years before the sale and used it as a residence for at least two years of that same five-year period; the two tests can be met in different two-year stretches, but both have to fall inside the five years ending on the sale date (IRS Tax Topic 701, read November 8, 2026). Rent the house out and that five-year window keeps running. An owner who lived in the house for years and then rents it for two can still be inside the window, subject to the other conditions in Topic 701, including that both spouses meet the use test for the $500,000 amount and that no gain from another home was excluded in the prior two years; an owner who rents it for more than three years, with no qualifying suspension, has moved out of the two-of-five window. Renting also converts the house to rental property for federal purposes, with depreciation while it is rented, and on a later sale the part of the gain attributable to depreciation allowed or allowable after May 6, 1997 generally cannot be excluded (IRS Publication 523). Those are questions for a CPA before the first lease, not after the fifth.

Rates, Timing, and the House That Sits Empty In Between

The 30-year fixed rate averaged 7.18 percent in the week of November 5, 2026 (Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey via FRED). That number matters twice. It is the national benchmark a buyer of your house borrows against, which shapes the price the house can bring. And it is the number your own rate is measured against: an owner holding a loan written years ago at a much lower rate is holding something a sale gives up, and that is one factor on the renting side when the ledger above clears; the equity tied up in the house, the risk of carrying it, and what the sale proceeds could do elsewhere sit on the other side. Timing matters on the rent side too: in our own pull of signed leases for four-bedroom houses over 2,200 square feet in the two-mile pocket around 76179, winter leases signed at $0.872 per square foot against $0.961 in spring (October 2, 2026; small samples, 13 and 16 leases). Whichever way the decision goes, the house is empty for a stretch, and the Texas Department of Insurance says most companies stop coverage if a house is vacant for 60 days or more, though liability coverage usually continues; a call to the carrier the week the house empties is part of either path.

How We Run It, and Where We Stand

We sell houses and we manage them, so we have a stake in either answer, and the only way to be useful is to run both numbers the same way every time: a broker's opinion of value with the closed sales behind it, a rent figure from the signed leases around the house, and the ledger above with the owner's own lines filled in. When the sale wins, we say so. When the rent clears after every cost and the owner's rate is worth keeping, we say that. The decision stays the owner's. This page is general information with our own market pulls as of the dates shown, not legal, tax or investment advice; a Texas attorney and a CPA should see the lease, the deed and the tax picture before either path is taken.

Common Questions

Is it better to sell or rent out a house in Texas right now?
It depends on two numbers only you can finish: the net from a sale, and the monthly net from renting after vacancy, management, repairs, landlord insurance and the tax change when the homestead comes off. Our November 9, 2026 county pull puts the market half of each: median closed price $365,000 in 39 days, median signed rent $2,200 in 31 days.
What happens to my homestead exemption if I rent out my house in Texas?
Renting a portion does not by itself end the homestead, but the exemption does not apply to the value of a portion used primarily for purposes incompatible with your own residential use (Tax Code 11.13(k)); whether renting the whole house ends the homestead turns on the temporary-absence test in 11.13(l), which the appraisal district decides. If the homestead ends, the 10 percent appraisal cap ends with it, and an over-65 school-tax ceiling goes too. Ask the district in writing before signing a lease.
Will I lose the capital gains exclusion if I rent my house before selling?
The $250,000 or $500,000 exclusion requires two years of ownership and two years of use as a residence within the five years before the sale (IRS Topic 701). Renting for up to about three years can leave the window open, subject to the topic's other conditions; longer and it closes, absent a qualifying suspension. Gain attributable to depreciation allowed or allowable while the house was rented generally cannot be excluded. A CPA question before the first lease.
How much does it cost to rent out a house instead of selling it?
Vacancy (about two months per tenancy in our managed book), management if hired (our published rate is 10 percent of collected rent plus a leasing fee of one month, 70 percent with a two-year agreement), repairs, a landlord insurance policy, and any property-tax change from losing the homestead. Each is a line in the ledger on this page.
Does a low mortgage rate mean I should keep the house and rent it?
It is one factor for renting when the rent clears every cost, because a sale gives the low rate up while the national benchmark a buyer borrows against was 7.18 percent in the week of Nov 5, 2026. It is not the whole argument: the ledger, the homestead change, the exclusion clock, and what the equity could do elsewhere all weigh.
Is my house insured while it sits empty between the decision and the move?
Not for long without a call. The Texas Department of Insurance says most companies stop coverage if a house is vacant 60 days or more, though liability coverage usually continues. Call the carrier the week the house empties, whichever way you are leaning.

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