What would you do in my situation ?

[Kevin Barnard]

So I own  a duplex in SoCal and live in one side , making life really cheap. Make 125k+ a year and only have 23k in the bank (building a race car for years made me not save ) I now save $400 a week.  Credit score is over 800 .

 I will need to move on in the next few years as family is growing and wife wants that nice quiet single family home somewhere . I'd like to invest more prior to getting the home of dreams which probably wont be in California. I can't walk of away from such a solid career until I replace it's income . 

I have access to 50k from 401k which I pay back after taxes with 7% interest to myself . But since I get paid weekely they would deduct $255 a week from my pay checks costing me over $1200 a month . Of course I'm paying myself so ehhh not that bad .

I also have a heloc available for $150k with 1.99% for 6 months and 4.5%- 5% after that 10.5% ceiling 4% floor  , federal plus 2.25 .

My thoughts are get out of SoCal Market and use the 150k heloc to try the BRRRR strategy somewhere. Where I don't know yet but it wont be here where average home is $400 a square foot . Seems even if rates go way up on heloc it would't be as bad as hard money .

My goal is to get in where I can now and some day do large multifamily but don't feel I have the experience or team in place to embark there now . 

Turnkey just seems like the easy way out , despite my lack of time I know the more I put in the more reward . I wanna learn not sit back and hope .

Could just continue to save , but where is the fun and reward in that . 

Do I seem on track if you were me ? 

Have any ideas for me ?