Rental Refi Question

[James Chandler]

Good Afternoon Everyone,

This is my first time posting on BP, I will try to be brief. I bought my first property a little over a year ago and am looking to buy another. I had a question regarding financing and was hoping for some advice on how to proceed. I will explain my current situation below:

I bought a house that needed a substantial amount of work at a discounted price ($93,500) with a plan to fix it up and live in it for five years. The renovation took 4 months and cost about $12,000 total because I did 90% of the work myself. The market in the area has performed well recently and the house is currently valued at $130,000. I had an opportunity a few months ago to live for free, which I decided to take advantage of. Instead of selling my property I decided to keep it as a rental. I am now renting the property out for about a $250 profit a month. After listening to BP podcasts recently I realized I essentially did the BRRRR strategy without even knowing it.

I am stuck on the refinance portion. I recently contacted a local bank to talk about re financing options but they said in order to refinance the property needs to be owner occupied. So that brings me to my current question, I am wondering how to proceed. By looking at the numbers I would qualify for a $32,000 HELOC (at 90%) but apparently I need to be living there in order to take advantage of that?

I would greatly appreciate any advice at all! I am looking to repeat the process on a multi family house in the near future but the owner occupied rules are throwing me off.

Thanks again!