Second Home/Vacation Property Loan (10% down) an option?

[JD Smith]

What are the rules around purchasing a property using a second home/vacation property mortgage (10% down) and renting it out?  What I've found so far is the property has to be self-managed for the first year and you either need to live in it 14 days or 10% of total days it was available to rent, whichever is greater.  Is there anything else? 

The self-managed part is easy enough to understand, but it's the "need to live in it" part that I am maybe not understanding.  If we have the property available to rent for the entire year, then we'd have to go stay in it 36 days a year? Or is it only on days someone actually rented it, so out of the 365 total days we were only able to for 250 days which means we'd have to stay in it 25 days that year. How do you keep track of the days rented and the amount of time you'd need to spend there to make sure you are meeting the requirements?  Is this also for the life of the loan or is it only for the first year?

Not looking to game the system and using the property for ourselves is part of the plan as it's where we normally vacation anyway, so considering that the 10% down payment is much more appealing if we are able to balance out the rules and keep the cash flow positive.  We are also not to a point yet to talk to a lender and when we are we definitely will, which I'm sure they can also help navigate this and put us into a loan that meets what we're looking for. 

[Jen Whitehead]

 My husband and I have two properties that we used second home loans and in both cases my lender knows that we also rent out to help cover the costs. You just have to spend so many weeks there to be considered second home. In both cases, we only put 10 percent down. I'd be happy to share my lenders contact info with you. She works for Annie Mac and they're a national lender. Good luck!