Hello,
First post and want to say I think this site is awesome. I am a newbie and would like to get some advice on a specific situation. I'm a novice real estate investor but have owned both my home and investment property for over 11 years now. I'm married and a father of 9 so I've played it safe as far as real estate investing goes for the past decade. Just like everyone starting out, I wanted to buy 1-2 properties per year but it seems I like I got my wires crossed and instead had 1-2 children per year...lol. I'm in pretty good position financially but have just started a business that has the potential of doing really well. The success of this business will dictate how much longer we'll live in our city. We previously made plans to relocate within the next 6-12 months. We've been applying Dave Ramsey's principles to our financial plan and are approximately $30K away from being debt free (excluding rental property). I have approximately $93K combined in equity on both properties. Here's my plan. I want to sell both properties and park the money with the rest of my savings and buy a house with cash in new city. This would take some pressure off of me financially as my wife will be quitting for a while after the new baby arrives. We would rent for the remainder of time in current location. I'd be traveling a lot so not having to deal with maintenance on both properties is appealing. Buying house with cash would also leave me broke aside from our retirement accounts. Before this business opportunity presented itself I intended on keeping my job and slowly investing in debt free rentals. My ability to get contracts will soon determine if the original plan goes out the window due to the need to fund the business. I like the idea of being debt free but understand I may not be able to accomplish both. I do not want to take on more personal debt. I appreciate your responses. Thanks!
