Buy it or Sell it: A Condo I can pay off or sell

[Damon D.]

Hi team,

I'm early in my journey and need some objective advice from some other folks. I currently have a mortgage on a condo in Tampa, FL. I'm trying to decide if I should go ahead and pay it off, making it into a soft asset with active renters in place, or just sell it and use the money elsewhere for a different investment. I could use some outside eyes on this. Here are the general qualities of the property:

• Property is in Tampa, FL, specifically Ybor City, the latin quarter. 
• Walking distance from great restaurants and nightlife.
• Condo property is nice, has a swimming pool, big gym, covered parking spot.
• Condo is from 2005 but has had no major updates since then, so it's "ok quality" but has no great upgrades in place, is builder quality
• I owe about 100k on the mortgage
• HOA fees are about 300 per month.
• Property Management Fee of about 150 per month. 
• Renter pays about 900 per month.
• Had some major fixes last year that ate all my profit (tune of 6k of fixes, hopefully one time)
• If I sell it, I can probably get 125k-130k max since it has no upgrades. After fees, maybe I'd make 20k on that. 

My options:

I have enough cash to just pay off the mortgage and make this a positive investment. OR, I can sell it. If I sell it, I'd probably use the profit towards another property. And I do have 100k in the bank "extra" that I can use for this without risking anything. 

So should I pay 100k into this, own it fully, and make cash flow of 450 a month (let's say 300 if I save 150 for random expenses etc), or sell it and use that 100k + the 20k or so from profit to find another property.

ALL OPINIONS WELCOME. 

[Joe Villeneuve]

 No don't pay it off.  Why?  What do you think you're gaining?  The answer is nothing...but you're losing $100k that you will get back in such small amounts (added cash flow) that is will probably take you at least 10 years to break even.

...or, you can go with option 2 and sell it, add the profit to your $100k, and buy multiple properties using the cash as minimum DP's.  I bet your total CF from the new buys will dramatically blow away the cash flow you would have if you kept this property with 100% equity.

Oh, and as far as the equity is concerned, you will have the exact same total equity either way.  The multiple property way you will have it spread over multiple properties...and if you put it all down as 20% DP's, you will have 5 times the total property value as you would holding and paying off that first property.  Let's think about what that means.  5 times the value also means 5 times the appreciation.