Gut check pls - second STR

[Alexis Carr]

Hi y'all. First time poster but could really use some feedback. My husband and I built a place in a vacation area outside of Chicago. We primarily built it for a holiday home and we rent when we aren't there (typically 85% of the time). The home has done really, really well. We got the rental home itch and bought another lot. We're now preparing to build, we ran the numbers and we think there's a return. But the financing is the big question. We can fund 100% ourselves but this is going to deplete us for about 6 mos. We grew up with little money so we're always planning for doomsday and keep a significant amount of cash on hand. Question is - would you go pay all cash right now for a STR given the way interest rates have gone? Our financial planner argues that we'd pay more in interest rates than return on investing the cash. Any perspective would be amazing. I'm starting to get cold feet.