Looking for multI family with empty unit in Tucson, AZ

[Alex Verdugo]

Hello all, 

I've been looking around BP for a while now and looking for a multI family complex I can move my family into in the next couple months. I've been woring with a couple Realtors to find something but I keep getting the same properties, over and over again. I'm wanting to move into one of the unit so I can hopefully get a FHA 203 loan. Here the goal is to renovate the one I'm living in and then move to another unit once the rehab is done. I'm sure this is pretty typical for a first time investor/ landlord. Unfortunately there hasn't been a whole lot of options as far as empty units.

  Another problem I have is that my credit really isn't that good and I would need down payment assistance.  I know there's always hard money but I don't want to go down that road just yet.  I'm trying to find private money lenders but what's the real difference between a hard money lender and a private lender?

Any help on finding properties, getting funded, and just some helpful advice would be greatly appreciated. 

Thank you,

Alex Verdugo 

[Patrick Allen]

It is a common way to get into your first multifamily property, but properties like that are hard to come by. You are seeing the same properties over and over again because there aren't that many properties on the market right now: about 20 tris and quads in the entire MLS. We have a lot of out of state investors in Tucson scooping up the best deals quickly, so it's a matter of being ready to close on the first deal that makes sense to you before somebody else finds it.

Lenders need you to have some sort of skin in the game be it cash in the form of a down-payment, your high credit score in the case of an FHA loan, or other assets in the form of cross collateralization or a HELOC. If you want an FHA loan you're going to have to play ball with the government's rules, namely a 580 FICO score and potentially higher for dpa.

I can give you some references if you'd like, but focus first on building up your down payment, repairing your credit and looking at deals. Once you get your score up or secure your capital (whichever comes first) you will also have a spreadsheet of what is a poor, mediocre and good deal relative to the other properties you have run numbers on: going forward then you will be able to tie up something quickly.