Someone smarter than I am will come along and explain why it is better to let the bank hold the debt in a high inflation environment, but sounds like you have cash sidelined anyway.

Sam I for one would like to know how many property's your holding?

There can be many factors: how close together are these? I dumped property's that were taking me way to long to get to miles wise. Will you be using any of your stash cash to pay them off.

The end game needs to be: shed the dogs and low income producers. Keep those with much potential for increasing rent.

If your done investing- pay some off but if your not done let the equity finance next purchases. They'll be plenty of time to consolidate but if your still investing keep the lenders open to you.

We refid 24 and used all the proceeds to pay off mortgages. We did not keep any cash from the refi-- all went to payoffs.

I agree with MYOB, if you are still trying to grow your operation then hold the cash. If indicators come true there will be some good buys in the next few months and with interest rates rising, cash will be king.

For any of us to give a qualified answer we wild need to know a bit more. It would be helpful to know such things as;

1. interest rates on the various properties

2. amortization time frame for the loans 15, 20, 25, 30 years

3. type of rental agreements & time remaining before next possible rent adjustment

4. whether LLing is your full time or part time business

5. do you have other sources of income

6. do you have adequate cash reserves even if you pay off some of these

7. your approximate age & health

8. your LLing plans - acquiring more , just holding & not expanding, down sizing

With the little info that you've provided I'd be inclined to say pay off the one / ones with the higher interest rates first but make sure you keep a good deal of cash for unforeseen events.

Your answer will depend on what of two ways you are looking at this problem.

If you are telling yourself that you want to increase cash flow, you will get one answer. If you are asking self how do you pay less interest at the end of the year - you may very well have a different answer.

I have multiple properties where I started out with $100,000 loan balances on them. Most of them how loan balances of only a few thousand. I got the loans modified where I am paying next to nothing to get them paid off. I want to give the impression that there is no equity on them. I do this via Equity stripping. By doing it this way an extra layer of asset protection is created while increasing your cash flow.

Then again, if you are just looking to decrease the banks annual bite on you - then you might to just pay down the property with the highest interest rate.

I suppose you could also try a third path though - and that would be to create a debt snow ball by paying of the properties that have the smallest balances and applying that freed up amount of cash towards another loan.

About 18 years ago I bought five dupes. My broker was a master at the ways to work so I had the least amount of cash out of pocket. (Man I miss him) Put heloc on each property at closing to help with the money down.

Paid off one heloc, then used the extra on the second and so forth. Got them all paid off and then started paying extra on the lowest mortgage. Did that for a while and it really helped. Bad thing is I closed the helocs out. I know now that I should have kept them available.

Late last year I refinanced three of the dupes. Pulled the money out, paid off two loans and sat on the cash. Well, I bought the kid a house but it is getting financed this month so that is a wash.

I liked the idea of paying off the smallest loans first. Interest rates are all close to the same, except the latest refi's.

A friend of mine did not LISTEN and paid off all of his properties without a plan!

When I paid off one of my largest properties, I already LOCK UP MY TITLE. Don't want someone to come along and take a paid off property and then re-sell it.