My current primary ( scenario 1) Keep the primary for the life of the loan ( current rate is 4.5 so i dont see my self refinancing anytime soon)current home value 1,150,000Loan amount 935,000appreciation estimate 5% per year after a 28 year hold and the house is paid off I would have a house worth 4,312,000$my current mortgage is 6125$ ( piti) included My second option( scenario 2) Sell the house, walk away with $150 ,000 ish in hand and put that into a low cost index fund Rent a house elsewhere for about 3000$ ish and take the extra 3000$ im saving everymonths from not having to pay my mortgage and puting that money in the index fund as well I ran the numbers on both of these scenarios and doing what I mentioned above would break even at about 28 years meaning my stock account would be worth 4.3 million just like my house would , but the only is that holding a house for 28 year would mean 28 years of property taxes, loan interest ,home insurance and repairs etc whick I calculated to be about 1,200,000$ at minimum which raised my eyebrows to say the least Also i understand that each of these options ( stock market vs real estate ) will have there tax consequences ( long term capital gains) so any thoughts on that would be appreciated as well.  

A lot of tenant issues are not that large and can be fixed by jack of all trades people.

So the question is, does your rental activity qualify as a trade or business or just a passive investment? 

@Karolina Powell, if you are going to make investment decisions based on someone saying a small market property is worth a 6-8 cap rate, do I have some things you will want to see...Everyone should have a general rule of thumb, and Austin may be correct, or he may be way off.Mixed use can be hard to value in any area unless there are other trades.  

Trade up.2024 will actually be more exciting, as balloon payments and anyone with an ARM loan comes due. 

You can trade vol just in different areas, real estate isn't one unless you're deep with money. 

We have discussed selling the property and rolling it into a multi-family but again feel like we may be trading a fairly hands off property with good cash flow for one that may be a bit more labor intensive and only yield marginally better performance.Any advice on how to expand our rental portfolio/maximize its performance is greatly appreciated!   

Another path to consider is to sell them under a 1031 exchange and trade into higher-value real estate.

Instead, there will be unintended  consequences that will negatively impact the very people they claim to be for. 

The consequence is that she needs to move to a less expensive place.