The fact it was purchased for $150K just effects how quickly I’ll have enough equity to make a cash out refi worth doing.Your index funds are pre-capital gains (assuming they aren’t tax advantaged) which mean’s you’ll probably owe 15% on returns.

. $10k  before capital gains tax sounds like a huge headache - HYSA or some index funds would get that with far less stress I warned them about buying cheap properties and trying to do a renovation from 2000 miles away with no experience.

Other dscr refis put me at a higher monthly.Appraised Value $700,000.00Sales Price $680,000.00Loan Amount $544,000.00Payment $3,966.67TERMSTue In 480Interest Rate 8.750 % Interest Only Months 120Total Payment (PITI) $4,832.78APR % 9.065 % Margin % Index % Floor RateFloor VerbiageConvertible: NoPREPAY: YES1.

The next $40,000 you can buy broad market index funds. 

The key features that make it more efficient that are hard to replicate else where is that the interest is simple interest similar to commercial loans (rate/365Xbalance daily), there’s a 20 day grace period before the prior period’s accrued interest is billed/added to your balance outstanding so you can keep chipping away at your daily principal balance with your deposits from days 1-19th each month before prior month’s interest is even billed (on the 20th/21st usually).The current CMT or constant maturity treasury index is less volatile than prime index that most heloc’s are based on (most bank commercial lines are based on 3-5 year FHLB + 225-275 BPS or 2.25-2.75% margin).

I could get that in a stock market index fund with a whole lot less hassle and risk.If I were to mortgage it (assuming I even could, what with the fractional ownership) it would be 340k purchase with 20% down @ 5.5% = 68k down pmt and 1823/mo (22k/yr) in mortgage costs.

What's holding me back is it isn't clear to me that rentals are better than index funds.

S&P, syndication, other indexed funds, bonds are likely a better option.

The Annual Allowable Rent Increase effective August 1, 2024 - July 31, 2025 is based on the lesser of 4% or the change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metropolitan area.

have 2 index funds set up (one for retirement) and am generally pretty far ahead.