Rent current house or sell it and use equity to buy more?

[Doug Davis]

HI All,

I am a soon to be in the rental market and am new to being a landlord.  Currently me and my siblings are fixing up a house to go on the rental market (my Dad's old house).

I also have been living in a house for 20 years and have probably 160k equity in it.  It's a small (1150 sq foot) house. I have about 45k saved up.

I was thinking about moving out and renting my current place.  However, I thought of an alternative:  Sell the house, and from that, I could buy two or three of rental properties and have some money left over.   One downside to that is for the new properties, I'm guessing that I wouldn't make much profit right away, because the mortgage would be higher than the home I have been in 20 years.  Also, I still need to get more well versed in valuation of properties. So far I have done some reading and online seminars.  But, I'll work on learning more.

Any opinions or ideas?  Which scenario do you think would work better?

Thanks!