Suggestions on deploying equity?

[Shaun Morgan]

Hi everyone,

     I've got a situation I'm trying to figure out. I have 5 properties in the city I live in, but I'm about to move so I need to decide do I keep them and go long distance or sell them and redeploy the capital. I'm also dealing with some financial stress due to poor investing decisions based on faulty information. Here are the details.

Property 1: mortgage $700, I pay utilities $350, and income is $2300. It is worth $230,000 and I owe $101,000. I estimate I'll keep $106,000 if I sell (also I've lived in this property 2 of the past 5 years so no taxes)

Property 2: mortgage $950, income is $1345. It is worth $180,000 and I owe $104,000. I estimate I'll walk away with $58,000 if I sell.

Property 3: is my current primary, but I have only lived here about a year. It is worth $180,000, I owe $142,000. I estimate I'll walk away with $20,000 if I sell. the numbers don't work for a long term hold right now because of my interest rate. It MIGHT work short term, but it would be close and I would have to pay to furnish it.

Property 4: Mortgage is 1217, it CAN bring in $1900, but I'm only bringing in $600 because of vacancy and repairs needed. One unit is about to be done. It is worth $142,000 as is and I owe that much, so I'd need to bring about $13,000 to the table to sell. I'm trying to do subject to, but it hasn't worked. This is my first mistake headache property so I really don't want to keep this one. If I fix it up and raise the rents it might sell for more, but I don't have the capital for that due to property 5.

Property 5: This is my second mistake property. I have a flip I'm working on that went south really fast for many reasons I won't detail here, but I'm hoping to break even on that when I sell in a couple months, but I might lose money. Most of my emergency money is now tied up in this flip.

I'm considering selling everything to shore up my financials since I have two properties that are bleeding me right now (I acknowledge fully that I made mistakes buying these properties, it has been an expensive learning experience) and to then move that capital with me when I move. I'll owe taxes on $65,000 of 171,000 I bring in selling everything, so to be safe let's say I only keep $42,000 of that. I'd have $$148,000 to work with.

I'm considering buying a duplex or quad when I move to house hack. Duplexes are around $300,000 with $1,500 ish in rent per side, and quads are in the $650,000 range with the same rents where I'm moving.

Do you think selling and buying a duplex or a quad is a good move? Would you sell to shore up previous bad financial moves? What would you do with $150,000 of liquid cash? I'm just looking for opinions to see where my blind spots are.