Use our HELOC to invest?

[Aja Leafe-Hall]

Hi there, I'm Aja ("Asia"). I'm a homeowner (and newbie) with my husband here in Olympia, WA. We have built quite a bit of equity with this property. I'm here to learn how to leverage that to generate more wealth and income for our family. We don't have much invested anywhere else and my husband is in his mid 50s. So I would like to have real estate investments to help fund his retirement, and ultimately mine (I'm in my 30s). Here's my burning question. We want to move cross country and invest in a new property back east while holding our west coast house as a rental. We already have a HELOC. If we borrow from that for a down payment on a new property, would there be risks I'm not seeing? I don't really want to Refi because we already have a low fixed rate on our first mortgage. The cash flow from our rental should be enough to pay down the HELOC. What am I not considering? Thanks! Aja

[Matt K.]

If you want to make it really easy, just calculate total living costs (heloc/mortages/insurance/taxes) and then total rents. That should give you a rough idea if it's worth it.