SELL or REFI rentals to buy apartment buildings??

[Terrence Williams]

I'm struggling with what to do with this and I'm hoping to get some input from some experienced investors. My goal for this year is to get out of flipping and focus on my rental portfolio. specifically apartment buildings. I need to put a strategic plan together to get going. I have a hand full of rental homes that I owe next to nothing on. The rents that I bring in from them is really really good. I could do a cash out refi to have quite a bit for a dp on a 2 to 3M apartment building but the. I would be making next to nothing on rental where it would seem worth the headache. Selling a few and doing a 1031 was another idea I thought of. Has anyone been down this road that could shed some knowledge on the transition? I feel like my passive income would be much great with the apartment buildings and much easier to manage than the rental homes.

[Jonathan Taylor Smith]

There is logic to trading up to larger multi-family properties that create an economy of scale. I will be going down this same path and will start to sell off my SFR as it makes sense to acquire larger MFR. I've not done so yet, but my plan is to 1031 Exchange, since that will allow me to capture 100% of the equity to put towards the next purchase whereas refi will get me around 75% at best with not enough remaining cash-flow to make it worth the difference.