I have 5 rental properties. Now what?

[Darnell P.]

All five have renters in them and I'm house hacking in the 3 flat. I want to discover strategies to pay the loans off on these properties as quickly as possible. So would you flip homes until you pay off the loans or would you buy and hold some SFH's using the BRRRR strategy to pay off the mortgages ? What would you do in this situation?

[Greg Scott]

Darnell:

I'm curious why do you would want to pay off these homes?   I know people feel safer with not debt but paid-in-full real estate typically provides terrible return-on-equity.  A mortgage-free property also makes you a target for lawsuits.

You can have improved returns by occasionally selling an asset or doing a cash-out refi and using those proceeds to buy more or bigger properties. Just be sure to be smart about debt. If you stay at or below 75% LTV, always with positive cash flow, you should not have any problems. With that strategy you get the best of both worlds, security and growth.

Just my 2 cents.