I grew up poor as well and have equity available but havent identified anything that gets me more than my ROE safely and without a bunch of hassle.Make sure you have a good use for the funds.

@David Roe I would just stick to your numbers.

I'm really looking for a simple model that give me basic stats like cash-on-cash return, ROE, IRR following a waterfall.

In 2009, I bought a townhouse in California for $590K.Today, that house is worth about $1.4M, and I owe $370K on it.It's bringing in $4,500/mo, but after $2,430 mortgage payment, $200 HOA, and ever-increasing property taxes, my ROE is really quite pitiful.Furthermore, my tax situation in the country where I live (outside the US) allows me to sell the property without being taxed here on the gains, but only if I act in the next few years.Thus, I've decided to 1031 the property.Now, I'm looking for suggestions, guidance, and experiences from folks who've done something like this.A few criteria:I care about cash flow, not appreciation, at this pointI visit Phoenix and Newark a lot, so I'd considered those as markets, but I'm not sure how to evaluate themI was thinking to buy a large apartment complex... but not sure if that's the right move as opposed to multiple properties.I have considerable amounts of cash that I can invest into the new property if needed, though I might just invest that into other projects separatelyI'd like to move this new property into an LLC to help protect my other assets, but I have heard that would be very challengingAppreciate any thoughts or guidance anyone can offer!

Your true return here is ROE, which isn't getting you much at all as the property is completely paid off and value is relatively high.If your think we're near the top of market in Sonoma County (and I don't disagree with you), perhaps you should look into selling and then wait for the correction to redeploy your funds.

@Ralph Noyes COC, ROE are great.

I am trying to calculate the ROE of the 1st house to decide if I should sell the house to finance other rental properties with better cash flow.My question is, when calculating ROE, should I consider $630 as the only source of income or should I include the $600/month payment which will make $630+$600 = $1230 as the income?

Don't think ROI (Return On Investment), think ROE (Return On Equity)!

If the ROE is < 10%  you should consider repositioning this asset.

You may continue to see great appreciation (of course, there's no guarantee), but it's doubtful that your money will be working as hard for you as it could.Even if you did cash flow $900/month, that's <3% Return on Equity (ROE), which is terrible.