What To do With 1st Investment Property-- Opinions / Advice?

[Teddy Smith]

Hi All

I'm writing because I bought a property in Oakland last year with an FHA loan that includes 2 building on one parcel / title: one is a single family 2 bedroom, 1 bath with a huge unfinished garage (essentially 3 cars deep), and one is a triplex, and the 2 buildings are connected by a small back yard.

The triplex is currently fully rented out at $4,250 per month in rents (essentially market rates)

And I'm currently living in the single family.

I write both to seek advice / opinions on what to do with the property, as well as potentially get a reference for a real estate attorney to help.

My goal is to get them cash flowing as much as possible, as well as increase my equity.

My plan would be to get a lawyer to help subdivide the buildings into 2 titles, and then get a conventional loan for the triplex and a fannie mae homestyle loan for the single family, and use it to get additional funds needed to convert the unfinished garage into a 1 bedroom unit and then rent that out, and move out of the top unit and rent it out.

The thinking behind the sub-division being that the 2 buildings separate are worth more than the 2 on one title.

And the thinking behind the fannie mae homestyle loan for the other unit being that I want one more door and I want to use someone else's money to build that additional unit.

Thoughts?

Advice?

[Matt K.]

It's late, I haven't looked at this stuff in years because I went out of state... But, looks like CA and Oakland might make this possible, if not even easy

https://www.oaklandca.gov/reso...

I think you could even convert the garage of the single family into an adu...and again Oakland seems to like ADUs

https://www.oaklandca.gov/topi...

Now money wise...I've been on a HELOC kick, understand the risk and know that it's a tool...but I love the fact that I can recycle the credit like over and over as I pay it down vs a traditional mortgage.