I'm ready to make a move....

[Brooke Carlton]

Hello all! I purchased my first home 6 years ago as my own personal property when I became a realtor. I was able to negotiate really good deal on it as well as collect the commission to help me fix up the home. I have a really great interest rate but I'm sitting on so much equity and I think its time to move on to something newer and use my equity to invest. 

I've made small cosmetic repairs and have made it comfortable for me and my family but there is some deferred maintenance and cosmetic things that I'd like to update before I'd want to sell. 

As it stands, I'm sitting on a little over $200k in equity. I'm debating if I should take out some equity and fix it up and sell. If I did, I'd go buy a newer property that I could turn into a rental in a year or 2 and repeat. Or should I take care of the maintenance and rent it out so that I can rent it out for about $1,000 more than my mortgage? 

-(side note, I don't qualify for a HELOC as I wrote off too much in taxes as a realtor)

What would you do?