Hello everyone! New here and I'm looking for your invaluable feedback

[Klesta Lamaj]

Hello! My name is Klesta and I'm brand new to these forums. I have been listening to bigger pockets for 10 short weeks now, but I feel I have learned more here than in any of my years of attending college or the MBA program, so thank you for making it worth my, and everyone else's, time. 

Here's my background:

- I'm currently employed as a product manager for a big bank in the US, and I have about 12 years of experience in the digital product and marketing space. 

- Without realizing it at first, I think I embarked in the real estate journey about 7 years ago. After years of a very frugal life, my parents and I put two down payments to buy two apartments in NYC in 2016, within a year from each other. 

- One was a conventional 30 year loan, the other was a 15 year term, at a time where interest rates were 3-3.5%. It took 6 years to pay them both off. 

- Earlier this year I bought a single family in northern FL, again with 20% down conventional using my 401K, and thanks to our savings, i was able to pay it off just last month. We're now down to the wire in terms of cash reserves.

- The intent if for my parents to go live down in FL, since they're also retiring in a matter of weeks and turn their NYC apartment into a long term rental. I can't rent out my apartment, so I see it as the hedge/insurance of everything else going wrong in our lives and we either end up living in it or selling it down the line. 

- I'm actively managing the single home FL property and we're doing renovation work ourselves. I've done short term rental with my parents' apartment in the past and I find I love doing it. 

- Goal is to give up my W2 job at some point, but not without rental income superseding it. 

Question for the community:

With 3 properties paid off, and with a desire to continue investing in short & mid and long term rentals in FL, can anyone recommend what's the best way to take out equity? HE Loan or HELOC? Anything else? Also, would you recommend single or multi family properties?

Thank you in advance!

[Henry Clark]

As part of your decision process consider the 2 years primary residence out of 5 years. If you or your parents sell $250,000 single or $500,000 capital gains is tax free.  The clock is ticking in the 5 years.

Risk reward number crunching:

1. REI is about leverage and not paying off.

2.  Sit down and do a Scaling plan to hit your income number after taxes you want to hit.  If you keep paying down large amounts you won’t ever get there.

3. Decide on your REI strategy. If you're going to do STR pick your location and property near rec areas. If your going to do LTR see if there are any military bases nearby they can use their BAH money and collections is easy.

4.  Your parents if close to retired living might choose to rent versus own.  

Key is to put together in paper a path to your numbers you want.