Looking to start in REI and pay down debt/mortgage

[Thomas Munley]

Hello, My name is Tom and I am a federal law enforcement officer. I have been reading/absorbing as much as I can about getting started in REI and I am looking to get some solid advice on where to start. I am also looking to do the accelerated payoff of my mortgage using a HELOC, to pay off debt and pay down my personal mortgage as fast as possible. My short term plan is to save $1000 extra dollars a month and before a year purchase my first rental property, and rinse and repeat that for the next few years to gain some positive cashflow. I have also been looking into getting a HELOC and was offered a product from homesite an 80/15 refi/heloc. I am currently in a FHA mortgage with a balance of 320k in a home that appraised for 425k. The product offered is a bit higher interest rate but no PMI (which I have currently, for the life of the FHA loan), plus the heloc for the flexibility of paying off debts and paying down my mortgage balance... Anyone have any advice about this strategy or possibly the loan product, I am a new father of twins so I'm hoping to avoid any possible pitfalls while getting my feet wet with investing. Thank you all in advance for the help. Tom

[Derek Diamond]

Hey Tom! Welcome. There are a lot of way to go and it sounds like you have done your research. Be carful with HELOC's, sometimes the interest can go up as rates increase. It would be terrible if you went though the steps to consolidate your debt to have the interest rate creep back up on you. You might want to look into just doing a refinance, with about $105K in equity you could lock in some long term financing, get ride of your PMI and pay down your other higher interest debt at the lowest rate you can probably find. Who knows you may even have enough left over to buy your first investment property. Good luck!