Qualifying for Second Conventional Mortgage

[Rick Hoogstraten]

Hi all,

I currently have a conventional mortgage on a townhouse I bought a couple years ago.  I am currently looking to house hack a duplex and keep the townhouse and rent that out as well.  I was told by a mortgage lender that in order to count the potential rental income from the duplex (to qualify for the new mortgage) that they would need a signed lease up front before I could purchase the duplex and get the mortgage.  I was wondering how common and doable this is and if anyone had experience doing it.  

I little background I do have a full-time good paying job just not good paying enough to qualify for a second conventional mortgage without additional income.  Any thoughts and advice on this scenario would be great!

Thanks everyone, Rick

[Ryan Canfield]

@Rick Hoogstraten Hi Rick, I started in a similar situation as what you've described. I had a conventional mortgage on a primary property and wanted to house hack at a different property. The way we were able to make it work was we used an FHA loan on a 3 flat that had 1 tenant in the property and I believe .75% of that rental income was used towards our purchasing qualification. We were also able to use an FHA on a 2nd property that we would be owner occupying because we were able to demonstrate that we were going up in size in the apartment unit we would be living in because the new property would have 3 bedrooms versus our current apartment that had 2 bedrooms.

I could certainly be wrong but I feel like I've heard that you should be able to count future income from the property when qualifying... but a lender would be able to better answer that question.