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Updated about 4 years ago,
MD resident: House hack w/ kids vs. two mortgages vs. pay debt?
Hi,
I'm a new medical resident currently completing a residency. I've been interested in real estate investing for a long time but haven't had the time to do it secondary to my medical training. Now that I'm a newly minted doc, I qualify for a physician mortgage (0 down, no PMI, higher interest rate loan). My spouse and I want to use this loan to buy a house for our family of four. We also have a big chunk of money saved now and were considering using this money to get a second mortgage. We'd love to buy a rental property (condo, duplex, etc) in the area that I'm completing my residency. Ideally we'd get the physician loan first (only first-time homeowners can have the deal) and then use our saved money to open a traditional mortgage (20% down) on a condo/duplex, etc to use as our first rental property.
I know it would be better to get our feet wet and "house hack" using the physician loan, but because of our children and the area we want to live, we haven't been able to find something that would work. Is getting this second mortgage a bad idea? Would a bank allow us to do that? Is it better to pay off all of my student loans first before I start messing around in real estate? My debt isn't horrible, but it is significant. I could probably pay it off in 5 years on my meager resident salary.
Thanks for any advice!
Julia