Lots of homes with equity, not much cash flow....

[Emily Harveaux]

Hubby is retired military with a nice little pension.  We own 7 rental properties  (each one has a mortgage) 10 doors (3 are duplex/main house with guest type of properties) and they have substantial equity (500K over all of them) and are not the best performers.  All together the incoming rent covers the mortgages at about 1800 total extra.  Hubby is working full time and we are wanting out of his 9-5.  Selling would be tricky because of low cost base from depreciation, realtor fees, excise tax.  We are currently shy on the 6 month reserve or we would try to do Refis and get them making some good income so he can hang with the family full time.

Any thoughts on brainstorming increase in income off of our fleet of homes?

TIA

[William Allen]

1031 them into some better performing assets. If I'm understanding your numbers right you are only seeing a 4% return on your equity and that's not even taking into account vacancy, capital expenses, repairs, etc unless you have already done that.  There are many ways to make a better return than that, especially with $500k!