Starting with a cash out refi

[Charles North]

Good morning folks!

First off I'm from the Ottawa, ON, Canada region. My wife, kids, and I have been house hacking our first home with 2 rentals out of it, as well as our primary residence. We're coming up on our first 5 years in this house, with mortgage renewal right around the corner. We have built up some nice equity with our house in this wild market. So our plan is to do a cash-out refinance for the full amount, and use that money to put down payments on, hopefully, a few cottages. The plan with the cottages is short-term vacation rentals, and since this whole short-term (airbnb) style of renting may be getting pushed out in the future, our contingency plan would then be to turn them into regular rentals, or to sell them if vacancy ever became a real issue. Our goal is to create enough passive income so I can eventually quit my day job, and work at purchasing more income properties to further increase cash flow.

I realize my expectations may be a bit embellished, but we needed to start somewhere.

We're quite new to the scene, and would appreciate any and all feedback! We are open to other ideas and strategies, especially if they fit within our goals. We would also consider purchasing single family and small multi-family homes if this better fit our profile, which is slightly lower risk taking I believe.

Cheers!