The Austin market is still going strong and we live in a very desirable area.We *could* roll up some debt and take our mortgage to 284k.This would increase our mortgage payment by 566/month, but by reducing the monthly minimum payments with the debt disappearing we would gain an additional 1000-1100/month (after the 566 is deducted).I'm also aware that mortgage interest is something we can deduct from our annual taxes vs. other debt which we can't...This is not our forever home, but we've had so much equity in our home for so long that I can tell I'm fearful to cut into our equity, but I don't want baseless emotion to make this decision and keep us tied to something that we're not looking to stay in forever.

He would like to attempt to avoid paying capital gains tax.

My goal in real estate is to gain my freedom - own my time 100% to do what I like daily and enjoy my life. 

talk to Peak Asset Lending in KC  @Alexander Felice  banks generally wont fool with stuff this low unless you have existing relationships with them.. the cost and risk of having a default far out weight what a bank can make on a 15 to 20k mortgage.but i have seen small local commerial banks do these for local citizens that own 10 to 50 homes and its their cottage industry so to speak

That event is heavily weighted to seller carryback investing rather than NPL investing. 

See if you can add some value to the property to gain equity and make it rain when you re-fi.Best of luck!

The use of it has no direct bearing on gain or 1031 or anything. 

There’s a lot of money to gain in real estate and a lot of money to lose so don’t be dumb .

I was told you can gain equity by renovating or by reducing the loan payments.

Hello Experts,I did couple of flips in 2018 with some capital gains (LLC) which I tend to offset with expense I incurred during fixing the properties .