New Buy & Hold Investor Vancouver WA

Rental Property Investor · Silver Spring MD · Member since 2016 · 23 posts · 4 votes

@Jeremy Wehrly good plan. We live in Vancouver and are looking to do the same thing. We have a rental in Astoria with a couple of business partners. We really want a duplex or more.

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Albert Bui

Lender · Bellevue WA & Orange County, CA · Member since 2013 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes

7y

Originally posted by @Jeremy Wehrly:

Hello everybody, I wanted to take a few minutes and introduce myself. My name is Jeremy and I am an E-6/TSgt in the Air Force Security Forces. I have been stationed overseas for about the past 7 years and my tour here in the United Kingdom will end in 2021. We are hoping to get stationed back home in Washington, Idaho or somewhere in the western United States. I have about 8 years left before retirement and I am hoping to get a few more rental properties over the next few years.

I began my real estate journey back in 2012 when my wife Tiffany and I purchased our first investment property in battleground WA. It is a SFH 4 Bedroom 2.5 Bath on 2.5 Acres in Battleground WA. Initially our plan was just to keep it and use tenants to pay the mortgage down and it would be our nest egg for when I retire from the Air Force. We actually refinanced our house about a year ago and after the appraisal we were shocked that we have about $200K in equity!

I am thinking about trying to get a HELOC on my rental property which could allow me to get the down payments I would need to purchase additional properties. I have also discussed with Tiffany the possibility of purchasing a duplex/triplex and living in it for a year then moving to a new property depending on where we get stationed.

I look forward to networking with everybody and welcome any offered advice!

V/r

Jeremy & Tiffany Wehrly

Nice going Jeremy,

I drive by battleground all the time when going down to portland/vancouver area.

Having the VA program is like an Ace up your sleeve if used correctly. The key is to utilize the VA program to obtain a house hack like you mentioned on a 3-4 unit and live in one and rent the others out. The other strategy is to reload your ace by refinancing out the VA with a conv or fha option (whichever is better for you at the time) so you can rinse and repeat.

Doing this alone can be effective because you can use a lot of other peoples money or OPM to build wealth for your future but, if you combine it with a BRRRR strategy it can be highly effective.

If your VA loan is currently tied up then there are options to utilize conventional financing or FHA too with low down depending on your situation, otherwise a strategy similar to the above.

In Clark county, WA you can actually cashflow still after doing a BRRRR which is good news because this is not true in many high cost areas of seattle where the rent to value is too low (5k rents per month / 1.5M house or .33% RV ratio). So these BRRR and house hacking strategies can work great in that area especially if you get a good deal too.

Best of luck,

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Chace Fraser

Realtor · Portland, OR · Member since 2017 · 357 posts · 259 votes

7y

Hi @Jeremy Wehrly this is awesome! Like @Albert Bui said the VA loan is an amazing tool to have. And what an awesome purchase in Battle Ground

@Saj Rambob I saw on your profile that you claim to be a newbie... although I may beg to differ since you have a rental in Astoria :) If you are interested in a good place to network in Vanacouver, there is a group called REVIN (real estate Vancouver investors network). It is free and they meet every other Tuesday from 12-1:30 at Gobi Mongolian Grill. I don't always make it but I'm going to try to today.

If either of you have questions please feel free to reach out!

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