All Forum Posts by: Paul Kwan

^^^ You're right. That will be the reality of actual costs in the end and it's more than I'm prepared to handle.

I think the more piratical thing for me to do is to get the dream home we're looking for with the equity from the first house. Than a few years down the road, consider an investment property when we're ready.

In the falling market, our current home will hopefully drop less in terms of actual dollars than the pricier home we're looking at. Or that's at least our hope.

I've even entertained selling now to hold onto the equity we currently have and buy when the market has softened more. It's a huge hassle...but an option.

This is the intention as I've seen many in the previous generation do this and retire comfortably.

But I believe it is somewhat a different ballgame now with the base real estate prices being so much higher. So is it a viable way to go about it or would liquidating it and purchasing cheaper rental properties (that still would neg cash flow) be more preferred?

Similar homes in the region rent for about $2300-2500. My current mortgage is $2450 + prop tax which is significant adding another ~500/mth and insurance so figure about $3k/mth.

The home is less than 10 yrs old and needs relatively minimal maintenance. I am very handy and will landlord and fix issues so extraneous costs should be low.

I guess the real goal is to minimize the neg cash flow. If interest rates cooperate in the near future, I'm hoping to bring the mortgage payment down to the $2200 region.

My first post but I've been lurking for awhile. I would like to thank all the members that have created this great resource.

I am looking for some input and critique about my planned strategy going forward.

I currently own my home in the San Diego area. My plan is to take advantage of this real estate opportunity to both buy a larger property and hold onto my current home on as a rental.

I have a fixed 30 yr @ 5.85 on my property that is worth about 555k. My mortgage is now about 390k and I am 6yrs into the loan.

I would like to buy a larger home that's about 750k. I would like to refi the current home to 1) cash out some equity towards the new home 2) Bring down the monthly to minimize neg cash flow 3) Keep my new mortgage under the tentatively proposed 630k conforming limit.

Under the current market conditions...would it be advisable to change me current 30yr fixed to an ARM to help in bring down the payments?