Newbies needing help with direction getting first rental property.

[Alex Bernard]

Hi all! 

My wife and I are very new to the real estate investment scene and would really like to get some guidance on which route to go to get our first rental property. 

We have been looking into all possibilities on financing and are unsure a route to take as we don't have a lot of money to invest. We currently have our primary home, the mortgage is a FHA loan of 200k with a remaining balance of 189k. Equity wise we have around 40k. Also currently my wife is not on the loan with me. Both of us have good credit scores and we both have good W2 incomes.

We have discussed moving into another house and renting out our current house. Staying in our current house and trying to get another property to purchase and rent out. We have also discussed House Hacking for a couple years saving up and starting a BRRRR, but with our current home and family there is no real decent way to do it.

We have discussed buying properties around the 80-120k price point that may need a small amount of work or even properties around the 120-180k that don’t need much work at all.

With not having a whole lot of money for Rehabbing, what would be a decent route to take and how to go about it? Is converting our current FHA into a Conventional loan a good option or getting a whole new different kind of loan in both our names (or just hers), possibly an open end mortgage to help with rehabilitation, or just a completely different kind of loan?

Any help and guidance is much appreciated as we are very intrigued and excited about all the possibilities with real estate! Thank you for your time!

[Carlos Valencia]

Hello Alex, 

Regarding refinancing your FHA into conventional is going to depend on what your current rate is. Would it make sense to refi? thats a question you would ask yourself. Have you lived in your current home for more than 12 months to move out to keep that home as FHA? Assuming you lived there for over 12 months you can move out and rented. Hopefully the rents will cover your mortgage payment including tax and insurance and this will free up your current borrowing power to buy another property. IF its in your budget you can go 5% conventional as new primary home. You can slowly rehab while living there then rinse and repeat. Hope this helps.

@Albert Bui @Matthew Kwan