To Upgrade, To Sell, To Rent, To Leverage Current Home?
Apologies if this is the wrong forum, seems like a general question to me?
We have a mortgage on our current house. After next summer, we are going to refinance. At that time, we will have around 100K in equity. I'd like to hear some creative thinking from seasoned investor types. Assume a less then stellar credit score, but things are back on track (Self-employment took it's toll!).
Our house is big enough, "nice" enough, and capable of housing our family just fine. However, my daily commute to Seattle is over an hour. We care a lot about what schools our kids will go to, which means we will probably move sometime in the next 6 years. The hour plus commute to work sucks, but I've been doing it for 6 years now, what's another few years? My point is, we don't have to move immediately.
We want to get into long term real estate investing. Obviously you see where this might be going. What is a good strategy for our situation? Do we leverage up to our necks to get some money working for us? Do we downsize? Do we leverage some, but less than up to our necks?