i have been managing 4-plex long distance since moving about 10 years ago. own it 15 years, occupied first 5 and upgraded everything possible.

anyway, it nets about 2k a month free cash flow after budgeting for capital expenses and current repairs, plus currently hitting about 700 a month towards principal on mortgage (6 years into refi'd 30 year mortgage).

have about 400k equity (before taxes) if i sell it. should i 1031 exchange, or move into stock market? love the house......what would you do?

Only you, have the answer to this one.

And only you, have to live with that decision.

My first rental house cost $72,000 back in 1978. Then in 1990 it was valued at $250,000. Then over the next six years it declined down to $165,000 but rents were still going up. Then from 1996 to 2006 the price climbed up to $550,000. Then it went down to $300,000 in 2010. I just sold that house for $580,000 and was netting $2,000 a month cash in my pocket before taxes. All the while I make more and more money on the rent each year.

I sold this house, I still have many others homes and apartment buildings, because of the following reasons:

1) I am a licensed building contractor and even though I can and have remodeled the property, there are curtain things that will continue to deteriorate and is not worth fixing when I can sell and move on. Not in this case but like foundation, under slab pipes, shifting soil ....etc.

2) The neighbor is now completely build up and now there is too much concentration of new building in the area. Traffic is horrible and not getting any better. Another reason to sell.

3) Schools are declining and few tenants want their children to go the local schools when a few miles down the road is a better school district.

4) The property I sold was not the best layout and was a hard rent and hard sell. Since it's a hot market, it was time to dump it.

Hello Joes.....whaddya know ;-)

When doing the analysis I might overweight the decision in regards to what your crystal ball tells you abut the area. Headed up or down?

Am just curious does the 1031 program require to invest in a 4 plex as well?

Another ? that pops into my head is: did the very recent changes to tax code/law have any effect on holding paper?

Tony: the ony wild card in that scenario is that is based on "literally" old news.

The new news is look at what just took over in the Gov.'s office. :-/

I do agree that the outlook recently has been rosy. Our local sale value have gone up about 10-15% at least.

So your ROI is 24K/400K = 6%. Are you happy with that?

If you saw a four-plex in your current neighborhood for sale for $400K that would net you $24K/yr, would you buy it?

Joey, I have to agree w/Robt(CA), in that every prop I bought, I let the tenants pay the mortgages off for me before I sold them. And every property I sold paid off multiple times my orig purchase price. At this point 17 yrs of LLing I only have 2 left that tenants are busy paying off for me. I would not be able to buy an equivalent prop for the same price today, and all my updates would now cost more to do. So, unless either of the two becomes (for some reason) too hard to manage or too costly to maintain--why would I sell what I could never replace? These are my golden eggs.