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Comment by shawnfrompdx | Hacker News Reader

just for reference about my amassed 'wealth', the combined cost of my mortgages is less than a studio apartment's rent in the bay area. i left the west coast for precisely this reason

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If your renter for a single room can completely cover your mortgage payments, there's a good chance that at least one of your properties has appreciated quite a lot since you bought it. That's wealth. If you go for a second mortgage or sell one of those houses, there's a good chance you will be covered on a relatively frugal lifestyle for quite a while.

property values are wealth. mortgage payments are costs. one doesn't imply anything about the other.

Are the properties underwater on the mortgage?

Can you rent out the vacant units?

if you read the original article i talked about how i got into this position. I originally had renters at both properties covering almost all the costs. they left shortly before losing my job.

I read it, but maybe I missed the details. Are they rented out now and can they be?

i gave it a 1-year shot at running the cabin as an airbnb, but it is only profitable the peak couple of months a year because we are extremely remote with very harsh winters. i feel a bit stuck under that until the end of this year because i have a bunch of guests booked and i would hate to rugpull them in order to transition it back to a long-term rental. I do believe with more time and money it could be a profitable short-term rental. my county just rolled out a 4% tax on airbnbs for no reason, which hurts. the city house would be income producing with another 30k$ of renovations, but in it's current state (i ran out of money on the renovations) it is half-rented, covering the operating cost.

can you fill the city house completely? Why push for short term rental in the cabins instead of long term?

It seems like getting those two sorted would greatly improve your monthly situation.

going back to the wealth thing, I recommend you think of these places as assets, not set in stone. If you are ahead on your mortgage, they literally are, slow to sell but worth real cash.

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