Paying off Debt first or start real-estate investing?

[Carlo Rodriguez]

Hi,

So I'm on the fence on this one.  I'm leaning more towards paying my debt off first to.

A few years ago (2015) my wife and decided that the monthly credit card/tax/medical/students loan bills were getting out of control.  We were forking out roughly 2000 a month on about 80K worth of debt.  So we decided to go nuts and pay this **** off fast.  I stopped my 401K investment per month and put everything towards bills.

Im currently paying almost 3K per month (my minimums add up to 1,400)

Today, we have only (only? lol) 40K left.  I'm on track to pay this off by mid 2018.

As a hopeful investor in real estate, I keep saying " I plan to buy my first rental next year when I'm out of debt".  

My question is why should I wait?

I currently have a ton of equity in my home that i can leverage to get a rental property.  I'm thinking, i can use this extra income per month to pay of my credit card bills faster!

Anyway, anyone else started investing in real estate while in debt?

Any advice?  Is pulling equity out to buy an investment property a bad decision?

Please let me know your thoughts.

Carlo