Selling Condo: Need Investment Advice / Guidance

[Stacy Weng]

Hi BP!

I wanted to get some thoughts and investment advice on what I should do with the gains from my condo if I were to sell it. First, here's some background on why I'm strongly considering selling my condo...

I bought the condo back in 2004 and lived in it for 10 years before moving out of it. Since then, I've been renting it out, thinking in my naive mind that as long as the rent covered the mortgage & condo fees, that it would be a good investment. This was before I started seriously looking into real estate investing, and before I discovered BP and started learning about all the different investment strategies out there and guidelines that determine if an investment is good or not.

Looking at my condo now, it's pretty obvious that based on the numbers alone, it's a pretty crappy investment and I could be making much better use of my money. I think part of me is somewhat emotionally attached to my condo since I did live in it for 10 years, but trying to disassociate myself from all that! 

The lease with my tenants end at the end of April, so now I'm seriously considering selling the condo after the lease ends. I'm guessing everyone would agree that it's a smart choice to sell the condo? =P

My husband and I have also been trying to start flipping in the DMV area since last summer. However, finding deals in this area has had its share of challenges, from the high real estate prices that require large amounts of capital, to rejected offers due to other competing offers that a lot of times don't make sense financially. I feel like now is also a time for us to re-evaluate our investment strategy, and if it makes sense to continue to try flipping, or maybe consider looking more into buy and holds, or maybe even a combination of both.

What I need some advice on is what should I do with the money from selling the condo, which would be approx 90-100K. Here are some of my options:

1. Use as additional capital towards flipping.This could possibly allow us to consider some higher priced properties or more extensive renos (which may have less competition?)
2. Use it towards multiple lower priced buy & holds further out, but still within driving distance if we need to check on it (thinking maybe the Winchester area? any other suggestions in the greater DMV area?)
3. Use it towards turnkey properties out of state in markets where we'd be able to get a lot more value for the money and hire a property management company (vetting and finding the right property management companies might be difficult from a distance?)
4. A combination of the above?

Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Stacy