Thoughts on using HELOC to fund downpayment?

[Kelly Conrad]

Looking to invest around Lake Nokomis/Richfield/Bloomington, MN

I've been doing some reading, and with the prices in my area I don't have enough funds for a 20-25% downpayment for multi-family properties. I have almost 30k available, but with some of my calculations using the BP Rental Calculator to get a good cash flow, most of these properties are looking to need about 60-70k down.

Now, we own our SFR and bough it at 224, and now it's been assessed at about 275 according to our property taxes. My question is, can I take out a HELOC on our primary house and use some of that money to put a down payment on our first property? From my reading it looks like that shouldn't be an issue, but it doesn't seem to be how folks are getting money for their first property downpayment.

[Sam Alomari]

Hi Kelly,

Definitely you can! I used $70k from my heloc to fund real estate transactions. You need to understand that heloc balance is reported on your personal credit, so if you are planning to get personal or conventional loans, then your heloc balance could affect your income to debt ratio and eventually you will qualify for less.