It's easy to obtain, costs very little, and doesn't require extra, on-going effort to maintain.

Yep, I used my HELOC to help me pay cash for my first two rentals. 3 years later I did a cash out refi on one of them and got all my cash back plus an extra 10k.

I always thought he went the extra mile to save me money and he knew what looked the best.

My realtor suggested about 10k-20k extra in value.  

If your property is a good mid-term candidate, then it's just a matter of whether the extra effort is worth the extra income to you.

It’s not a feature a tenant will pay extra for, much less maintain.  

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.  

That may look different next year, but if not, sustainability and morale are more important than a few thousand extra dollars per year.Running a 53 acre ranch in Texas is a WHOLE other level of property management.

It may sound nice to pay a 6% management fee but the extra fees can add up to be more than the other company that charges 10% with no additional fees.

Budget extra for overages