BRRR Question on 2-flat

[Joe Mende]

Good evening, everyone. I've recently had an offer accepted and am going through the process now, closing date in early March on a 2-flat located on the Northside of Chicago (Irving Park). I'll be living in one floor and renting out the other floor. Currently, we are putting 20% down on the 2-flat at a price of 435k. This will be my first 2-flat and I spent a little more money than originally planning to since I was going to be living in it and wanted to be in a decent neighborhood.

The mortgage is looking like it'll be around $2500 and the tenant that is there is paying $1500 already, meaning I'm only on the hook for $1000/month, which isn't bad at all. My next obstacle will be to find a way to acquire another rental property and I've been reading about the BRRR Strategy. From what I understand, this requires that you purchase the property in cash. Since I did not do that, are there any other suggestions to be able to do something similar vs. trying to save up 20% down payment on another property?

[Brent Coombs]

Originally posted by @Brie Schmidt:

@Joe Mende - First, I hope you are not just expecting to pay $1000 a month.  Your agent should have run numbers including reapirs, vacancy, capex, utilities, ect as well as tax increases which are likely to happen next year as 2018 is a reassessment year. 

For BRRR you don't need to buy in cash. If you buy with 20% down and make significant repairs you can do a cash out refi after 6 months. Now that you currently own property, the 5% down option is no longer available to you so moving forward your options are 3.5% FHA or 20% down if you are going to live there or 25% down if you are not.

Brie, because Joe hasn't closed on the property yet, mightn't 5% down still be an option? 

Joe, please avoid snobbiness in future, otherwise, how will you succeed with BRRRR? ie. It's hard to buy properties at a steep discount, if you're too fussy with condition / location! My 2c...