When to buy and when to sell

[Ronald Cooperman]

We own 50 investment properties mostly SFR.'s. Is now the time to sell some for nice profits and wait 6-9 months to buy replacements at potentially lower prices?

[Bill B.]

You can sell if you plan to leave real estate. You can not sell with 10% in selling costs, 15-25% in taxes and then plan to rebuy within a year. If you get a massive 20% price correction (maybe a 1% chance of this happening?) then you can rebuy back in to the exact spot you are now except you lost 9 months of income. 

Think about how many people are out there trying to buy at today's prices and you're hoping for a huge price drop? Good luck with that. I think if you sell now you're not getting back in to real estate and certainly nti at a net gain. If you want to switch to something beaten down like nursing homes or commercial properties with a 1031 exchange MAYBe. If you're as big an expert at them as you are at SFR. Otherwise you may just flush all your SFR money down a money put.