Ok big outgo expenses lately, 2 new roofs a new driveway, Insulation project, and a pretty big rehab. about 100 K all together. most on 2 credit cards .

My plan has to put it on one of those deals to transfer to a CC that has a delay of having to pay for 18 months.

I'm wondering if there is big flaw in this.

Note this is Ma and I'm done being a landlord here,.( I've lasted 36 years,)... As many of you know its a pretty terrible place to be a LL. Esp in my county and our local judges. And my age and vitality is becoming a factor. So my plan is to sell my 4 buildings (all paid for no mortgages) and move on,.

Just one sale will bring in enough to easily pay off the cards

I did this occassionally back in the day.

I don't think there's any paperwork per se...

Anyone think one consolidation card is better than another?

Also I think some of you are missing the point.

So he needed to replace 2 roofs, a driveway, insulation upgrade,and a general betterment of his property. To pay for all this he put it in his cards. Then wants to convert the debt to a card that has zero interest and doesn't come due for a year and a half.

By this time as he wants to sell his buildings , if he sells only one, it pays off the amount. So in doing this, he also doesn't have to pay the high rate of regular cards are charging. Plus he probably can get more on the sale of these upgraded buildings .

The cards I have seen do not charge any interest for XX months. But once that time frame is up you have to pay interest on the entire purchase from when you started.

My daughter did this for finishing up her masters degree. She used a Discover card. It was all going well until the hiccup happened and she was not sure she could pay the last 9k off.

Her parents gave her an interest free loan as long as she paid off that debt first. That was about the only smart money thing she attempted in years, and it still backfired on her.

If you are sure you can sell the place to pay off the debt before it snowballs then I see no problem with it. If there is much of a chance that you won't get the debt paid off I would look elsewhere.

I have held CC debt, which is never fun, but the CF from my other properties made the payments. So it wasn't hurting my wallet, I was just not making as much as I could have been.

I also use credit card balance transfers regularly. My favorite cards? Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo ( though they haven't offered any for awhile) Discover, US Bank, BMO. So, pretty much anybody. The ones I listed offer 0% interest fairly regularly. Other banks offer at the start, but not again. That doesn't work for me, but since you are selling soon, wouldn't be a problem for you.

Things to keep in mind:

There is usually a fee for originating these, recently between 3-5%.

Write down the details, especially the expiration date for the zero percent rate, and the rate the debt will go to once the zero percent expires. Most banks have that information at the bottom of the bank statement, but some don't.

I would open a Credit Karma account so you can monitor the accounts, and keep an eye on your credit score. I went from having 850/850/900 credit scores for years down to a low of 580 in about two years when I first bought my rentals, then rehabbed just using credit cards. Score is back up to mid 700s, but I'll never see those perfect scores again, as our cars are paid for, our house is paid for, and I don't have mortgages on the rentals. I might be able to get a higher credit score once my utilization falls below 30% on all of my cards. Houses are renovated, debt is going down fairly rapidly. I mention all of this as a reminder for you to keep in mind any other financial borrowing you may need to do, or, if you would be applying for a job. Many employers use credit score as part of their hiring metrics. ( doesn't sound like that's the case here.)

Also, each hard credit pull will lower your score temporarily. I learned to open multiple new cards all in the same day, so the temporary ding hadn't affected the next card issuers' decision.

Most importantly, be sure to use a checklist, or some system to be sure you are making the minimum payments each month. If you add a whole bunch of new credit cards, and are, ahem... of a certain age ( like me) it is easy to overlook one or two, if a checklist of some sort isn't used. My checklist has saved my butt multiple times over the years, especially as I also log in about once a week to check and make sure the payment that I thought I made online actually went through.

I consider my use of credit card debt to be very successful. Enjoy your retirement and new found time.

GKarl might be better at providing insight. In my eyes you are doing six figures in improvement without the ability to write off the interest on that debt.

Interest on credit card debt is deductible. Oh, here's another MUST : keep cards for the rental business entirely separate from personal debt. No co-mingling! To deduct the fees, I just put a line that says credit card fees in Miscellaneous on Schedule E. If I recall, Turbo tax asks about interest, all types, not just mortgage. But, if not, just put it in Miscellaneous.

Everything comes with fine print.

The large print is the sales pitch.