<p>We’re going to start with trying to increase the home equity line on our own home. Not sure how much room there is at this point. </p>
<p>
This is how I see it: if we had put X money in savings accounts for the past 20 years, you would say well, now you should spend that money. If we had, say, bought stocks and bonds, <em>you</em> would say now you should sell some and spend that money. But we put money and time into real estate investments. So now, we have basically 3 options </p>
<p>(1) sell some of the real estate and spend that money. No one wants to do this, as we would then no longer have that income-generating investment.</p>
<p>(2) just take what money we get from cashflow from the real estate and use that (fine, except that it isn’t available in large clumps such as one needs when tuition is due. And maybe not enough in one single year to pay for the total costs in that year (especially once D joins S at college). Get no benefit from the equity until the properties are sold.</p>
<p>(3) Borrow small amounts as needed to make the tuition payments and amortize over a slightly longer than the 6 years we expect to have undergrads. Still have the real estate as investments and income generators when we are done.</p>