So we closed on the sale of our rental property yesterday, we hadn't been planning on selling it but it literally fell in our laps (tenant made us a DAMN good offer, and they were PITA tenants anyway). This released 110k in equity we had in that house and are trying to decide what to do.
No debt outside the 15 year mortgage on the current primary property 279k @ 2.75%, (I know I know, but it's DC, and that's for a townhouse) we will only be living in this house for about 3 more years then selling it. Current NW, excluding these proceeds is 1.2m and change. DH and I know we want to retire down in the FL Keys, it's pretty much set in stone, however he will be working for a minimum of 5 more years (military pension), the most he'd work would be 7-8 more years based on how future promotions go and after that we are done and will be moving down to the lower keys.
He wants to buy land down there right away with the proceeds (it can take YEARS to get building permits from what we hear and we would prefer to bring in a modular that is up to storm code vs purchasing an existing house that will NOT be up to code) where as I'm more leaning towards sticking it in an index fund, letting it do it's thing and then selling when we need the funds. If the time line were a little longer this would be a no brainer but with it only being 5 years out, part of me is hesitant to commit our "retirement house" money to the markets.
Other option is to purchase a rental home, but monthly rents in the area don't seem to support the overpriced housing, you see tons of high rents in Key West, but those are for the lucky few places that own transient licenses that allow weekly rentals, those houses generally start at a million bucks so we will NOT be in one of those areas. Plus there is then dealing with long distance landlording and flood insurance on a rental property (anyone have any experience here, I can't seem to get a straight answer from FEMA about what is covered if we use the house part of the year).
In this case what would you guys do? Buy land, invest it, or keep it in cash for a year in case a good chuck of land appears as there is nothing on the market at the moment that I would be willing to purchase.
