READER CASE STUDY - sell it and move on or keep it and make it better

[rustybucket]

Hi i would love to get some opinions from some people on a property i have.

My question is do i keep this property for the long haul, pay it off and then use the rental income for retirement. Or do i sell it now take the profits and move onto something else.

Here is the info: I bought this property last year with the new main house unfinished, over the last year i finished the home and started to rent it out. I still lived on the property at the time.

I have one 0.66 acre property with 3 Separate Rental homes on it.

Bought Dec 01 2013 for 452,000$
Current Mortgage of 404,000$
Market Value 600,000$
Mortgage Interest rate 3.59%
Mortgage Term 4 years left of 5
Mortgage amortization 25 years
Monthly payment of 2361$ inc property taxes
Total rent for 2014, 32,250$
I paid roughly 14,615$ in mortgage interest
Home insurance of 3349$
Utilities of 2995$

I have a 27,000$ debt on  line of credit at 5.6% from finishing the new home on the property, i currently pay 1000$ a month to pay off the loc.
No other debt at all.

I have two options for keeping the home, i can refinance this year with the bank to get my loc covered and then the rest of the money would go into the older homes on the property in renovations to get more rent income. Currently i get 2850$ a month with the upgrades i would get 3850$ a month. The total refinancing would be for an extra 65,000$. Basically mortgage would stay the same but a new five year term would start with a 200$ a month higher payment. Ideally i would be able to pay off this new mortgage in 15 years with the extra money.

Or

I do nothing and just keep renting it all out trying to stay up on maintenance as best i can but the older home will need some face lifts and upgrades as the time goes on.

Or

I sell it for 600,000 and move onto something else.


I can write of the mortgage interest, utilities and home insurance on this property as well as the maintenance costs. I do most of the work myself  on my time off from work.

Myself im 30 years old i live in Canada, i dont work where i live so being a landlord gets hard at times but i can still do it. I make about 80,000$ a year not including my rental income. my only debt is the property.

what else can i tell you? What would you do? take the new money or not?

Thanks

[waltworks]

If it's worth $600k, and you can only rent everything for $3500 a month or so, then you should sell it immediately. Not worth the headaches or stress for that low of a return, especially if you're already into LOCs to do repairs.

Dump. Buy something else that's a better investment.

-W

[rustybucket]

Rodger. I originally purchased this place as i was planning on living in the new house. At the time that was the the plan now the plans seem to have changed on me as they do.

The thing i wonder about, is if i owe 400,000 on it and i can get close to $4000 a month, is that not usually a good place to be with a rental, sort of in the one percent area?

[waltworks]

No, you base it on market value. If your house is worth a cool million, and you only owe $100,000, does that make renting it for $1000 a month a good idea?

-W