Newbie from Livermore, California

[Kathleen Oliver]

Hello everyone! I found this forum by searching for information on renting our current home. My name is Kathleen and my husband Dan is being transferred to Southern California for work. I am self-employed and will be able to take my business with me. We currently own a home in Livermore, CA (under a VA loan) and are looking to rent it out and purchase in Temecula, CA.

We are currently researching our loan options, but are clueless on renting out our current residence. The ideal situation would be after 2-3 years when Dan's job situation will likely change again that we would move back to Livermore (unless we fall in love with our new location!), but at that time sell our home and be able to purchase something larger. We bought this house for 400K two years ago (a foreclosure) and it is currently worth about 550 - 600K. Which is amazing, however we used a VA loan with no down payment so we still have quite a high mortgage payment and need to cover that (plus additional costs) with rent coming in.

So, I am hoping with the help of people here, we can maximize the rent coming in to cover all our costs while our home continues to appreciate. We are not looking to make any money in Temecula as we have heard it can take upwards of 7 years for a home to appreciate there. We are even considering just renting ourselves down there because of this (and would love opinions on that as well from those who have experience in that area of CA).

As I am originally from Canada and renting is the minority as homes are so reasonable there, this is all very new to me. I have always been interested in investing in real estate, but this is the first time I have been able to actually consider it.

I also own a home just outside of Toronto and eventually would like to be able to use that to our advantage (currently my dad is living in that home and paying the mortgage).

Looking forward to learning!