In a bit of a situation at the moment. A good one but also scary one. My girlfriend and I have decided to try and find a property in Arizona to have a stable place to live and have the ability to get a stable income. I am looking to purchase rental properties around the big cities of Arizona, but it is difficult to do that when I live on the coast of California. It would be difficult to see the properties in person, and make the right choice for my first investment, so we decided to move to our own place in Arizona first.

We currently pay about $700 in rent living in a trailer in California, so we are no stranger to sacrificing a few commodities in order to save as much money as possible. We found a few houses built on 10 acre plots of land near Flagstaff that look pretty nice and are around $100,000. The houses are about 30 minutes from the city of Flagstaff and are self sustainable, (solar panels, water tank, septic) though like I said we are not afraid of sacrifice. The mortgage on the property would be the same if not less than what we pay for rent here in California so we figured we might as well have our money go towards some equity than be thrown away towards rent. A big plus is that our wages would basically be the same, so we could save the same amount of money if not more because the lower prices to live in Arizona.

THE PROBLEM is the loan itself. I wanted to ask for some advice on how to approach a lender for a loan. I have made multiple calls asking about USDA loans as the 0% down would be helpful in the move. Though I would also do an FHA loan if necessary. For the loan, the lender wants my income to be stable and constant, but moving from another state means I would have to find a completely new job and try to get an offer letter before I even get preapproved for the loan. I am 21 years old and essentially have no debt to my name other than the $60 I keep on my credit card balance for my credit score to grow, which looks good because I don't have a substantially large annual income.

So I wanted to post this and see anyone's opinion on how to attack/approach this situation in the most efficient way. Should I purchase the property while still living in California and just pay the rent and the mortgage at the same time until I can make the move? Should I try and find a job ahead of time and get an offer letter for the loan and then get preapproved? Should I try and get a cosigner? This is my first property purchase so any advice would be good. I apologize if I am lacking necessary information in this post or if the post is a bit mixed up but this is all still very new to me. Thanks!

Tempe, Arizona

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