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Should I refinance now or save to buy investment rental w/ fiance before or after marriage?

Hi reddit,

After 2 years of planning (mostly by her) our wedding got cancelled (thanks for nothing covid-19). Now we're planning on having a scaled back simple wedding much later or just have kids with a civil court and get on with our lives.

Anyway, I have a real estate question on what would be the best approach to buy an investment rental like an apartment or condo or small house. Our biggest hurdle is the down payment. With our wedding savings we can save for another 2 years to complete it. Or should I refinance my home to get cash out now for the down payment? Does it change anything to buy a rental before or after marriage?

Note I'm planning to refinance my condo anyway to drop the interest rate about 1% (not APR) and to shorten the loan to a 15 yr-fix (i have 24 yrs left on current mortgage). It will raise my monthly payment a little but it's negligible (with no cash-out option). Or instead of a refinance cash out is it better to use equity (loan or HELOC) to complete the rental down payment or use the cash-out refinance (I'll still be under 80% LTV)?

Anyone have any reasonable prediction on the housing if it's better to just wait to buy a rental with this pandemic going on? - I should post that separately.

Background

We live together in California, same salary, great credit, less than 8K left in school loans, no other bad debt, savings (wedding fund). She's never owned a home before and I own my condo and my parents home. One income is enough for what we currently have.

I also need/want to pay off my parents home with an variable rate mortgage (fix rate period just ended - long story). I was thinking to roll this into a cash-out refinance to pay it off since the balance is low (cheaper than most cars) and the payments are too. Or use my savings to pay it off but then I would have to save longer (less than a year) for the rental down payment. I think for my parents home it's best just to hurry up and pay it off since it won't generate additional income.

Thanks all!

submitted by /u/ZeuzDaMoose
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/ga3zv2/should_i_refinance_now_or_save_to_buy_investment/

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