Struggling with direction to take

[Denise Dresbach]

Hi all,

I have been reading Bigger Pockets for a couple years now and recently started listening to the pod casts and love it! I am writing today to get some advice.

I bought my first investment property almost 2 years now this July.

It was a short sale and I got it for a great price in a great area.

It is a condo but has over 135k in equity right now. Other condos in the building that are listed are sold in just a few days and it seems each month they go for a few thousand more. I did do a cash out refinance beginning of the year and want to use the 85k to use as a down payment on another investment place.

Now here is where my dilemma comes in. I have this site to learn from, a few books I am reading (suggested by this site) and the pod casts where I hear different stories. Each story I hear a lot of great success stories.

The issue I have right now is what direction do I go? Obviously nobody can tell me what to do that is something I have to figure out myself but what I am looking for is advice on how to figure that out or to hear how others deal with deciding on what direction to take.

I bounce around with a couple of ideas:

1. Keep condo and collect rent and eventually find something to buy with 85k pulled out of loan. So far this has been hard in our area because prices have gone up quite nicely. Really the only properties in this range are just more condos and I would rather not have multiple condos. Unless of course it has an ocean view and I can vacation rent.

2. Sell condo and use the cash made from sale to buy a duplex either in this area or surrounding areas. This is what I am leaning towards.

3. Possibly hold or sell condo and buy out of state.

4. Buy a vacation condo in Hawaii that I can rent out and visit. (probably the worst idea but tempting)

It seems like at this point I should "cash out" on the condo and buy a house or duplex. I am having some trouble letting go since it has gone up and continues to go up.

Any advice or stories from others who are going thru this same situation would be great!

Thanks for reading.