You know when you feel stuck

[Natalia Soares]

Hi guys,

You know when you are feeling stuck...been feeling like this for sometime now..so maybe you guys can help. I bought my first 3 family about 2.5 years ago with a co-borrower in the greater Boston area. I house hack one of the units while the 2 other units pay the mortgage and expenses, not accounting for vacancies/properties management though. I have about 200k in equity and my unit would be about 2k in rent. I had an FHA on it but refinanced into a conventional which got me to the numbers mentioned above. (Definitely visit this site for a forum of people sharing their refi rates https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=289559&start=7100). I want to buy another property preferably another 3 family but I really don’t want to put 20% down. And this where I am stuck with all the below questions running through my head and always at a dead end....

• - do I refinance to one borrower so I can get another fha? I would occupy it. I reached out to lenders to see if I can get an FHA but it doesn't look like it's possible because of how my taxes have the rents split and I would have to qualify with both mortgages which I don't...
• - do I use the home equity to buy another one as a down payment? Found some banks that can give me line for 100% LTV as a 2 year fixed @5% and then variable or the lowest I found was prime+1. Is this even a good idea?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Natalia