I’m now two weeks away from officially selling my house and 6 weeks away from cashing in my cheque from the lawyer’s office. Now that I have the final amount for my house, I can start making some calculations! Following my original plan, I will pay off my debts. However, I have decided not to pay off my RV loan and pursue my alternative scenario. This is a $45K loan with a monthly payment of $410. Since this is not a huge amount in my budget, I decided I could find a better use for this money. It is time to revise the situation and do some math!
First, the Numbers
I expected to sell my house at $365K but I got $355 for plenty of good reasons. This is unfortunate because it is 10K less in my budget. However, I will save roughly $2K/month starting in November since I will be moving to my mother’s house until June 2016. Therefore, I will be able to save a good $10,000 during this period. This will help me finance what is left to buy for our trip.
Overall, I can expect to have between $45,000 and $50,000 in my bank account ready to invest in a project. I’ve done some research so far and here are my options:
Buying a Rental Property
I have an eye on a triplex generating roughly $400/month in net revenue. This option is interesting as I would have a place to stay once I arrive home. As a bonus, my “new home” would be pretty cheap considering the other two tenants would pay a good part of my mortgage. The bad side is that I don’t know how it would go with tenants and I would be pretty far away to take care of the property once I leave. Still, I will investigate this option a little further by visiting the triplex.
Buying a Commercial Property
I also have an eye on a commercial property in a prime spot. I’m lucky enough to know the current commercial tenant and I know he is doing good business. I’m also aware he doesn’t have enough cash to buy the property yet could probably be interested in a partnership. I like this option since I would not be alone to take care of the property, I know the tenant won’t be a problem and would have a very nice asset in my portfolio. On the other hand, the property is nowhere close to new as it was built in the 50s. I will have to run the numbers to see how good (or bad) this investment could be.
Invest in the Stock Market
The stock market is currently taking a pause in a very solid bull market. I’m confident we will see stocks going higher in 2016 and this could be my opportunity to build a very solid dividend portfolio aside from my retirement account. I am seriously considering this option as it requires minimum time to take care of since I already follow the market. The money remains liquid and I have the opportunity to boost my return by using a margin account. I could easily invest 100K with 50K in hand and borrow the remainder.
Invest in the Internet
My fourth option and far from being the least interesting is to use this money to buy a website. I’m very good at managing existing websites and had lots of success with my past purchases. In general, a site could generate between 40 and 50% return year after a year. I’ve been doing this since 2008 and bought about a dozen websites since then. My “poor” purchases are still generating about 20% and my best purchases generated over 100%. The down side of this option is that I don’t see any good opportunities at the moment (Psst! If you want to sell your website, send me an email 
).
What Would You Do?
Since I have 6 weeks before I cash in my cheque, I’m still not in a hurry to make a decision. I’m looking at these 4 options as all of them will generate a better return than paying off my RV loan. I need to prepare my finances for once I come back and this is why investing in an asset is definitely a better idea. All my life, I have wished I had a good chunk of money to invest… I finally have it, now it’s time to make the right decision!
I’m curious to read about what you would do in my position?
