I need advice on our rental portfolio! Please help!

[Jesse Kreun]

Hi all - 

I need some help!  My wife and I are real estate investors - we own three properties and none of them are living up to our expectations.  We have been putting a ton of our own money into the properties to keep them going, but at this point there is no more money to keep them afloat, so we need answers.   The only option we can see is to sell them all, but I wanted to post on here to see if there was any advice or options that we haven't thought of yet.  We do not want to make an emotional decision, but we seem to be painted into a corner with our finances.  

Property 1: 4plex (the best performing property we have).  Generally gives us a few hundred dollars per month after paying the mortgage, but we have probably about $100k in equity at this point.  We could refi and get some of the cash out, but that would remove any of the cashflow we have currently, which doesn't seem to make sense. 

Property 2: 24 unit apartment complex.  The numbers when we purchased look good, but we are still not realizing the profit we expected and the expenses seem so high each month.  The managers keep telling us that we'll get to the profit soon, but month after month is doesn't materialize.  I don't believe they are scamming us, but yet we continue to have to dig into our own pockets to cover part of the mortgage. If we sell, there is a little bit of equity here, but not a ton.

Property 3: Hardest property we own. 11 unit apartment complex.  Again - the numbers looked good when we purchased, but again- after years of owning it, it is still not performing and we rarely get any money from the property to even pay the mortgage out of, so it is ALL coming out of our pocket!  We just got rid of a bad tenant and the managers say the property is stabilizing, but it could be a few months yet before we start getting paid.  If we sell, there is a little bit of equity here, but not a ton.

So question-  would you sell one? All?  Any other options that you can think of? What kind of professional can give us advice on this? We are talking to a financial planner this week, but of course they are going to be more interested in selling us on stocks, etc.

Thanks, all!