Couple general real estate and loan questions...

[Jeff Dietz]

Hi All,

I have been looking into purchasing cash flowing properties in the St Louis area...

But my question in this case regards my personal living situation. I would also like to sell or rent out my townhome and move into a house.

I have an FHA loan on this townhome. Would that mean I would not be able to get another FHA loan? I am thinking my best route would be to rent out the townhome with the loan it has and then put 20% down on a conventional loan for the house I purchase.

Secondly, I was wanting to look into the option of refinancing the townhome. It would not cashflow enough to cover repairs with the payments I have now. The rate is currently at 4.96% for 25 years (bi-weekly payments) and I am getting a lot of papers in the mail offering rates to refinance to a 30 year mortgage at 3.25%. I have researched refinancing a little bit and I am seeing that there may be restrictions in place as far as requirements to live in the property for a year or more.

I was hoping to move in 2014 but I am willing to stay in the townhome a little longer if it is the best option. I am just looking for the best route to achieve my goal of purchasing a house. This situation is a little bit confusing to me because I bought this townhome before I started looking onto REI so this would not be an ideal home for a rental since it was somewhat expensive and not big for cash flowing. However, I have about 3 and 1/2 years of paying mortgage into it and the neighborhood is getting nicer with a lot of new developments in the area so I think it may be worth keeping.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Regards,