Financing a fourth primary..a house hacking problem

[Ian K.]

So I've been house hacking here in Denver. We bought the third home nearly a year ago which we are currently living in and renting out the previous two primaries. We would like to move out in the next year or so and stay for awhile in the fourth home. House hacking is tough though, although apparently easier now that banks only require your rental income to cover the mortgage after it has been discounted to 75%. This is better than the 30% equity that was required previously on the vacated primary. That is my understanding-please correct me if I'm wrong. One question on this though-what is considered when determining the "mortgage"? Is it PI, or PITI +PMI?

 The other hard part is 1) finding a place in Denver 2) getting the current primary rented in around 2-3 weeks so that the loan on the purchase goes through.  How can I make this easier?  I've thought about going with a hard money loan and find an off market property, fix it up and then I could have more flexibility-longer time to get the current primary rented. What sort of things would I have to consider when using a hard money loan for a new primary until I could refinance out of it into a conventional?  I know debt to income ratio gets tricky as you get more properties not to mention the obvious issue that hard money loans are expensive.  I guess I just want to make sure I can refinance out of  it and into a conventional.  Is this a portfolio lender solution?  What about a bridge loan?  Could a bridge loan be used if conventional financing goes south in the 11th hour due to not finding a tenant for the primary? Has anyone done this? I'm only worried that renting it might require the seasonality of renting to college students. Gasp! Not ideal of course, just trying to figure out plans B-D or E if I need to.  Thanks for any insight. 

[Bryan O.]

I was going to agree with @Chris Mason strategy, but with on BIG caveat. Make sure that if you do that you already know that your lender is onboard with it. If your financing falls through you have a lease with a new tenant that already paid their security deposit and you'd better have somewhere to move to! Get with your lender first and make sure they have underwriting agree that if you did it that way they would be certain to fund.