FHA Loan or 5% Conventional on 2nd Multi-Family when Married...

[Lisa Alston]

My husband and I just recently sold our single family home, and decided to invest that money into multi-family properties. We just used an FHA loan to purchase our first multi-family property. We live there and rent the other unit. The multi-family property we just purchased is only under my husbands name. I did not use any of my credentials - the bank did not even check my credit.

Since we are married, I keep reading online it is more complicated to purchase another multi-family home right away, even though I am not on the loan for the multi-family we just purchased. I know if we were not married I could use my own FHA loan right away, make it my primary, and then we have two properties.

So my question is...are there ways around this? Can I purchase my own multi-family using FHA or a lower down payment method and make the home I purchase my primary address? I really do not want to have to put down 15-20% to get the second multi-family since the bank will view it as an investment property. We also do not want to refinance out of the current FHA loan, because the interest rate is extremely low since we purchased during the height of COVID.

Any suggestions...