Sell, retire, rent — could that work?

High home prices are a gift to aging homeowners whose retirement nest egg is skimpy.

Except that when retired owners sell and pivot to the buy side, high prices on even much smaller homes can erode much of their sale profit.

The other choice is to invest sale proceeds and rent instead of purchasing a home.

“Especially with today’s hot housing prices, it’s likely that some older homeowners are indeed selling their homes and then pocketing the profits before transitioning to a less expensive rental unit,” observes Jacob Channel, senior economic analyst at LendingTree.

But deciding to rent after owning is a difficult calculation. Here are some issues experts believe need to be considered.

Temporary plans: A retiree may ultimately plan to move to assisted living, and rent for a stint until they’re ready, notes Amy Ford of Silvernest, an online roommate matching service. The risk here is that rental expenses can whittle too far into the sum needed later to afford assisted living, she adds.

If a retiree is moving to be near an adult child, but that child may move somewhere else in the future, renting is practical since it’s “easier to not renew a lease than it is to sell a home,” Channel says.

Rental realities: Retirees who don’t want to bother with the expense and hassle of maintenance will like leaving chores to a landlord. But rental charges can rise over time, while monthly costs in mortgage and property taxes are more predictable.

Nest egg economics: It’s probably not practical to rely heavily on income generated from the proceeds of a home sale to pay rental charges for the rest of your life. Any financial adviser who projects a certain rate of return on investments should also detail the risks that you won’t see the return you’re hoping for, explains financial planner Dan Moisand of Melbourne, Florida.