Feeling hopeless with getting financing

[Ben Sorochuk]

So my problem is the following: I'm a 22 year old engineer in Tacoma WA. I make 100k, have 740 credit score. I bought my first home in April 2022 few months ago as a conventional mortgage 5% primary residence and have been househacking it to the max. It has 5 bedrooms plus 2 rooms that don't have closets so aren't considered bedrooms but im living in 1 and renting out the other 6. Mortgage $3,650/month, rental income $5,100/month. So it's going great, especially since I'm living here too. And I'm ukrainian so our community is well connected and people know what I'm doing so I get someone calling like every 3 days asking if I have any rooms left to rent (I'm all full!). Seeing how much demand there is I've been trying to buy another house and rent it by the room. I'm having trouble getting financing though. I have 70k in savings but a house that would work well would be like 450k in Tacoma. I'm unable to get a conventional investment property loan because it requires 15% down or more, and the 6 months of reserves so like 100k total. Cant get it as a second home because they won't count my househacking "boarder" income. They only count my engineer job income so with the current house my DTI is already high at like 45%. DSCR loans all require 20-25% down. Any advice on how to get funding? Family members/friends either don't have money or too scared of risk to lend me like 50k or coinvest. Seller financing is hard to persuade. Just seems like I'm bottle necked. I feel like I could grow a lot if I could get funding. Can't cash out refi my current home, I just bought it and it's got only 5% downpayment equity. Do you think i could get approved for some type of loan to get a deal done without waiting a over a year to save money and build equity in my primary residence? I'm okay with paying a bit higher interest rate, just don't want to pay something crazy like 10%. I can refinance into a conventional investment property loan in like a year anyway after I build up some savings. Do you have any good mortgage broker recommendations?

[Zach Wain]

@Ben Sorochuk -  would you be open to buying a new primary home and moving?  Technically, there is a 12 month occupancy cert you signed at closing, but many lenders will let you (the next lender/undewriter on the hypothetical purchase) buy a new home in 6-12 months from the date you closed.  So April 2022 means you might be able to buy a new primary as early as Oct 22.  That way, you can put 5% down.  

BUT - the only way a lender will count rental income on the property you would be departing would be leases.  Even if they are room by room, that is ok, but signed leases and you can negate the payment.  

I am a Mortgage Broker, but we are not licensed in WA so I can not assist.  But PM if have any other ideas or questions.