Financing My Second Property

[Tim Crosby]

So it's been almost a year since I bought my first property. I've been counting the days in anticipation of this event and I'm ready to start looking at a second property, or so I thought before talking to my broker..

Originally, the plan was to finance tree first duplex with an FHA loan, live in one side for a year and then look for another duplex afterwards, finance that with a similar loan, live there for one year, rinse and repeat, etc.

I knew that I'd eventually have to find another way to finance these deals, but I didn't think it would be before buying my second property!

According to my current broker 1) you can NOT have more than 1 FHA loan at a time. 2) Being that this is the second property for me, the terms wouldn't be that much different from a conventional loan anyways. 3) Being that a conventional loan is my best option and I do plan to live in the new home, if I want another duplex I would need 15% down, but if I want a single-family home, I only need 5%.

Maybe this person is 100% correct and this is the best option for me. Maybe they just don't have access to better deals. Maybe they're inexperienced in this area of financing and just don't know. I certainly don't know.

What do you think? Is this information accurate? Is there something else I should be asking? Any advice is appreciated!

[Travis Henry]

@Tim Crosby Based on what you provided in your post, it doesn't sound like you would be eligible for an exception to have more than one FHA loan outstanding (though it is possible). Have you done any work on your current duplex? Wondering if you would have enough equity for a refinance into a conventional mortgage to make sense. If so, this might be a way to free up your FHA slot.