Pay off Student Loans or Invest in Rental

[Yeng Hawj]

I'm in the process of buying a bigger house and selling my current one. I have enough equity in the current house where I can do a 40% down on the bigger house. But instead I'm debating on doing only a 20% down, which will be a significant increase to my current mortgage on the smaller house, and use a good chunck of the 20%, to either pay off student loans ($65k, saving about $700/mo in payments that can be used to offset mortgage), or using it to put down on rentals (multifamily). Looking at the student loan payoff option, the ROI on that is about 14% but with no appreciation, where rentals may return 8-10% but has appreciation. Given the market right now, would it still be a good idea to bank on appreciation and cashflow, or is paying off the loan a better option?

[Cassi Justiz]

I would personally rather be debt free or close to it when the time comes to start investing in real estate. I know you said you were already in the process of selling your current home. But if it's still possible, staying with a smaller mortgage payment while sinking the difference and any extra into student loans would probably accelerate your goals.