I have to Disagree  on that one my Family is Been Investing in Real estate for over 70 years, i am the 4th generation and my Grandfather now 85 and very very well off gives me his advice and tells me if you can get some free money ( cash flow ) that what he calls it is still the best cause somebody is building equity for you and you getting a return on the original cash investment you did out of pocket its not that is for poor investors is for people who are starting and want to make quick money that part is true but not always Cash flow is a powerful thing with the right cash flow property you can start extracting equity and build savings and grow your portfolio even more no matter how rich you are, the shorestein family large real estate owners which i happen to know personally says less money out of your pocket more money that will come in after pay day. interpreted how ever you want thats my opinion not all deals can be cash flow but if you find one is good to get in.

I am not empty-handed,  but the few grand I have in the bank account seems to have only attracted the people most interested in extracting it.  

I think I need to object to the idea on philosophical grounds.When you extract a late fee it's because the tenant has caused you legal injury because if their failure to pay on time.

If there's a mortgage, the holder will usually file for a Protective Order(PO), basically extracting the property from the BK. 

And most of the good cashflowing ones I found were in derelict housing, which I didn't want to take on.Back when I was looking, I spent like a solid year reading every single article on BP, searching the market, and creating a somewhat sophisticated Excel analysis spreadsheet (I got it to the point where all you had to do was enter in the MLS number and it would extract all the data, analyze it, and spit out all the details.It's analyzing everything from appreciation rates, cumulative appreciation gain, IRR, NPV, etc.Here's a screenshot from the summary numbers of some of the properties I was looking at over a year ago.

Should I sell or refinance and extract cash?

It's in their blood to try and extract as much money out of you as possible.

I may be able to extract value out of the reno home but with a old home I would expect some issues during the renovations.I am very curious to hear everyone's thoughts as this would be my first investment property.Thank you,  

I'll be honest, I've only started looking into real estate investing in the last month, and most of my early strategies in terms of city selection etc have been extracted directly from books.

I would have the two properties and sit on that for a while until I saved more money to acquire more or accumulated more equity to extract from the investment property?