Why not have two homes?
If you are renting and have everything in storage, you are paying out a lot for that so financially, you are not coming out ahead.
Plus, most leases for rental require a year commitment and a penalty if you back out early.
If you stay where you are, you can do a few things to make it saleable and go through your stuff to weed out what you don’t want.
Seems like renting would complicate things a lot.
Why not indeed? Mean already says the first home is paid for. Keep it. Do not sell it. Put it in the rental market and use the extra income while the property appreciates in value each and every year.