Tampa, Fort Myers, or HAWAII??

[Nick Rittmann]

Hi Bigger Pockets,

My family and I are considering moving to one of these 3 areas:

->Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida

->Fort Myers/Cape Coral/Naples, Florida

->Oahu (Honolulu), Maui, or the western side of the Big Island (Kailua-Kona) in Hawaii

With that said, here are our MAIN considerations:

#1: Warm water and warm weather

Everyone in our family loves the water and why we've narrowed our search to these 3 areas

#2. Schools
On top of having good public schools for our kids to attend, my wife used to be a teacher and is currently an assistant principle, so a state/municipality that values our educators in terms of how they treat and compensate them is also important for us

Both the Tampa and Fort Myers areas are relatively affordable, Hawaii ...yeah, not so much, but I believe we can overcome that obstacle (more on that below). Basically

#3. We MUST house-hack
A.) FHA & Multi-Family Units:
4-unit multi-family is preferred, but not necessarily required, especially given how difficult they are to come by in some markets. I forget off the top of my head if it's a one-year, or two-year commitment to owner-occupy the property if you use an FHA loan(which we fully intend on doing to take advantage the 3.5% down requirement). Upon fulfilling the length of time required by the FHA for owner-occupants, we move out and really reap the rewards from a cash flow perspective, and either repeat the process entirely and buy another multi-family, or purchase and move into a single-family home (that's a "good" problem for us to save later on!)

**We're a little confused though on the loan limitations the FHA has. Here's why:

The stated FHA max limits are dependent on location, I get that, BUT, for example, the basic standard mortgage limits for FHA insured multi-families in Honolulu are as follows:

2-Unit: $923,050

3-Unit: $1,115,800

4-Unit: $1,386,650

HOWEVER, even though the max limits as shown on HUD's website for Honolulu show those that I've typed above, on the same page, if you scroll down a little bit, they go on to state, "Section 214 of the National Housing Act provides that mortgage limits for Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, and Virgin Islands may be adjusted up to 150 percent of the new ceilings."

So, if I follow this correctly, if we were to move to Honolulu and purchase a multi-family, we could actually borrow a max of $1,470,475 for a 2-unit, a max of $1,777,375 for a 3-unit, and a max of $2,208,825 for a 4-unit ...is this correct???

B.) Real Estate Investment Potential: 

Ideally, we'd like to AirBnB out the other units as we live in the other as we *should* get a better return than if we were to rent them out to a tenant. In the 3 markets were considering moving to, we'd expect some seasonal fluctuations in demand/pricing elasticity, but overall, would expect to have some relatively healthy occupancy rates year-round (say, 70-80%)

Appreciation would be more the icing-on-the-cake than anything, so a properties ability to CASH FLOW is more important to us than the rate with which it may appreciate in value. In terms of monthly expenses, we'd LOVE to get close to breaking even ...when we're living in one of the units and cash flow isn't an expectation of ours ...while we're living in one of the properties units

We're desperate to pack up and move to one of these areas tomorrow!! If you'd be willing to share any advice, thoughts, concerns, or which market you'd pick and why, WE'D LOVE to hear it and be forever in your debt!!!

Thanks for reading!

-The Rittmann Family