Lots of stuck equity, what to do

[Avery Heilbron]

Hi,

It's been about 4 years since I first posted on here wanting to buy my first househack. Now I am financially free. Real estate is cool. I bought my first property in the Boston area and now live in the Raleigh-Durham area.

My struggle right now is utilizing my properties with strong equity to buy more. In my duplex I currently have $330k in equity and my triplex I have $270k in equity and my single family airbnb I have $175k in equity.

My duplex cash flowed just over $20 grand last year, my triplex $11k and my airbnb I only listed in July last year and did roughly $1k/month. Respectively my interest rates are 3.375,2.75, & 4.125 on these properties. 

My conundrum here is my ROE. $1600-$1700/month cash flow on a duplex is pretty cool but my ROE on that property is around 6%. The issue is I can't get a HELOC on an investment property (I have tried - maybe not hard enough) and a cash out refi leaves me with a couple hundred dollar cash flow and roughly an $80k check(cash out refi in MA requires 70 LTV from people who I've spoken to) after finishing the refi (which doesn't feel worth it).

Most deals in the multifamily space I see are also not great return atm and may not even cover the required DSCR from the lender. So I don't know what I should do really.

Is it time to be patient, 1031, do the cash out and lose my cash flow? I'm not sure the best option for these.

I can also get a sizeable HELOC on my primary which I plan to do anyway and just bought another property a couple of weeks ago for airbnb. For all my purchases I've been leveraging my W2 and real estate (and now social media income) to save up.

Thanks for reading!