Thanks for your responses and the links to biggerpockets. It is embarrassing how little we really know about what our money is doing. I think DH and I need to make truly learning about this a priority.
Good for you, that is the right attitude! It's great to hear when someone is receptive to learn more. And I agree, you're talking about nearly a quarter million dollars in equity in these two homes (not counting transaction costs), so this is not a trivial thing to gloss over. That's a lot of money that could be doing more for you.
By the way, if it helps, you might pick a target return rate for an alternate investment you would make, if you were to sell these two properties. For example, let's say you are willing to go with historical returns from the stock market of about 9% nominal returns as a basis to compare against. Then, you would likely only hold these two properties if you could exceed 9% returns
after all expenses are taken out, since holding rental properties does involve some level of work and they are illiquid assets, whereas holding stocks requires virtually no work and is very liquid (but does involve risk of course). In this case, you would only hold these properties if you could net more than $250,000 x 9% = $22,500 each year in net profit (rents minus all expenses/repairs/vacancies/management costs/etc.).
Think of that (or perhaps your husband should): You should likely be earning $22,000+ per year from the money you have invested in these homes! And if you're not, that's a lot of money to leave on the table each year.
Disclosure: Like many or most here, I have stocks and real estate. Most of us think diversification is a good thing. Owning real estate would be a great thing for you to continue to do, but you can likely find much better "cash flowing" properties.