Been a Property Investor. Thinking about investing in STOCKS.

[ButchLisa Wofford]

Copying and pasting here  the message I sent to David Greene . Hoping to get some thoughts/ideas here that would help me resolve my dilemma on how/where to invest the $300k cash we have  - Whether to buy a 2 bedroom  property in UK at £200k ($244k), with monthly rent of £1200 ($1470) .  I can't get a mortgage, so I need to pay it in cash. OR should I invest in STOCKS.  
Here's more details of my situation/dilemma

I've investing in properties since 2000. I am American who has been living in UK since 1999 because I have a good job working at U.S. Military base here.

I own 9 rental properties here in UK and in 2021 and 2022, I bought 2 properties  in Florida.

I have dilemma right now and am hoping you can give me your thoughts on it.

I have about 300k cash in my bank account. I don't want to buy a property in the States at the moment.

I want to buy another one here in UK where I leave because I get a good/guaranteed rental income with U.S. military members being stationed here. The U.S. military base pays for their housing here.

And there's less rental expenses here because it is the tenant who pays the property tax here, insurance is $200-$250/year, and the labor cost (to hire a plumber, handyman, builder, etc.) is much cheaper than in the States.

Recently I talked to someone who owned 14 rental properties and she decided to sell all properties back in 2014 because she doesn't want to deal with all the time/effort of managing them. She has been investing in stocks then and doing well.

So this got me thinking, may be I should start investing in stocks. I have a few mutual funds (not much, may be a total of $30k) and 403B plan with my work and have about 530k invested in growth funds.

Back to the 300k that we have at the moment. I got an offer accepted on a 2 bedroom property in UK for £200k ($244,000) . We'll get a rent of £1200 ($1470)/month. I'd buy this property but if we get a mortgage with the high interest, we won't make any income and we'll paying expenses out of pocket.  But even, if we want to  mortgage the property, I can't get a mortgage right now because of my credit score here in UK being adversely affected from £245( $300)utility bill that went into default. This does not affect my U.S. credit score, which is excellent. 

My question is, should I buy this £200k ($244k) 2 bedroom house, that would rent for £1200 ($1470)/month and use up most of my cash OR should I just invest in stocks over a period of 6 months (buying carefully selected stocks using dollar -cost averaging). OR should I just invest in stocks. I already started doing my reading and search on it and have someone I trust who has been investing in stocks for over 20 years now and is doing well.

Hope to get co-investors thoughts on these before making a decision... which is today or at the latest tomorrow