Sell both. Take $500K equity from current primary house and put as down payment towards $1.5M house. That gives you a mortgage that is 1.25x your HHI which is extremely conservative.

At $700K HHI you could do $2M purchase price with $500-800K down from both properties and still be below 2x HHI. Remember the conservative rule is 2.5x so you’re still wellllll below the average.

Definitely sell the ski house. I feel like whether to keep the cash-flow positive current house depends on where it is. I live in DC and would not want to be a landlord here. But if you're in MD or VA it might be tenable.

Keep in mind that if you sell the primary home now you get all the appreciation tax-free, but if you decide in 3-4 years that you should have sold you have to pay taxes on that money. Probably better to sell everything at once and use the money for the new house down payment.

Yes, sell both and put the cash for the new house.

Sell both houses. Real estate is an awful investment. The gains of the last five years are behind us and won't repeat anytime soon. Only own the house that you live in.

Anonymous wrote:Sell the ski house and rent when you go there.

Agree. Plus we’re all in either DC/VA/MD here, so it’s a looooong drive or a flight to anywhere with decent skiing.

OP, sell the ski place you barely use and buy a house you’ll enjoy every single day.

Also meant to say we would use the $300k from the ski house as a start to the DP.

Sell the ski house and rent when you go there.

We own a second home that has been hard to get to last few years. it is valued at 900k, our equity is $300k. Lots of fees because we airbnb it and take a loss but it covers maybe half of the mortgage. We rent about 55k gross a year but have to pay property manager, cleaner, HOA which is $5000 a year plus assessments, snow removal. It’s a townhouse in a ski village. We absolutely do not cash flow but we use it a few weeks a year. Mortgage is 6 percent something interest rate.

We are outgrowing our current house which is worth about 1.35 million and we owe about $500k at a 3 percent mortgage. Payment is pretty low, taxes are locked in. We have owned 10 years. We can rent for 8k a month and cash flow.

We want a small upgrade to a better house for teens. Something in the 1.6 range with less bedrooms, a big family room and a pool. We are considering holding our current house to use as a long term rental and buying another house but this would require selling the second home. What are your thoughts here?

HHI is about 700k.