My 6-Month Plan To Use The VA Loan To buy My First House Hack

[Chase Kimbrell]

I've technically been a member of BP for years, ever since I felt that urge to find passive income streams when I was in college. I stumbled upon BP while looking into different ways of investing. I didn't understand it completely back then, and I didn't make a plan to save money for any properties. But now I'm back because since I joined the military after getting my associate's, I still want to be able to earn more through passive income. I watched some YouTube videos on the subject which pointed me back to BP. I logged in a few months ago and rediscovered my old account. Ever since then I've been listening to the BP Realty Investing podcast (while playing PS4 Monopoly simultaneously lol), reading books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, The Richest Man In Babylon, and Brandon Turner's blue Real Estate Investing book. I'm saving up as much as I can these days, despite many setbacks as of late, to be able to put money into a multiplex that I want to buy with my VA Home Loan. Of course, I don't have to have a whole down payment with the VAHL, but I know there will be fees I need to pay and possibly some expensive repairs or appliances I will need for my rental units. I live overseas (not a deployed location), and being in the military, that means I'm not allowed to house hack now (there are military laws against having non-family room mates while using Overseas Housing Allowance), but I leave in 6 months to go back to the states. I don't know where I'm going yet, as the vacancy list drops in about 3 weeks. I'm hoping to go to the Mid West, South, or North West.

Once I am back in the states, I will have 2 years left on my enlistment contract. I plan to save the money saved from house hacking and put it into buying at least one other house. I am also putting money into the military’s version of the 401k, and they match it 5%. I have about $4,000 in it now and I think it should grow to about $9,000 by the end of 2 years. I’d like to put that money into another house. So hopefully, in the next 2.5 years, I’ll have at least 3 houses, at least one of those being a multiplex that I spend 2 years house hacking in. One of those would also conceivably be a multiplex property that I move to when I decide to either go home to Alaska or wherever I end up going to college, like Liberty U in Virginia. I believe that if I can have 3 houses (5-12 units) by the time I go to college, I can spend the next 4 years in college using my GI Bill (military full-ride scholarship) and continue to grow my investment portfolio. By the time I’m out of college, I could have a fully-fledged investment portfolio and be completely ready to retire without working.

Please let me know what you think. Tell me if you have any concerns. I’m worried, personally, that lenders won’t like that I don’t have a job during college despite being supported by the GI Bill. I’m considering owning/operating a photography business on the side during college if it would help my credibility for lenders. Please let me know if you have insight on this issue. Thanks for any responses and feel free to ask me questions about my plan.

[Chris S.]

Hey Chase,

I too got started with house hacking using my VA so I think it is a pretty solid idea. Good thing about the VA loan is that you can use it multiple times until you meet your cap. I am not positive on the numbers, but say you bought a 4plex for 450k (I did) that left me with another 270k in VA funds that I can still use to buy either a SFR or a small duplex (with prices up here). This could help you out with your portfolio building since you could get at least 2 properties with 0% down (live in them at least a year of course) and then maybe use FHA with 3.5% down to get another one.

The only issue I see with your plan is picking up more properties in college without a job. Every lender I have come across requires you to have proof of income, generally from either a salaried job or investments. Your previous house hack purchases can help with this, assuming you bought well and they cash flow by lender standards. As far as owning/operating a photography business you will need to be established in that profession for at least 2 years with tax statements showing income generation in order for it to be considered as income for lender purposes. 

Side note, find a good lender and speak with them before you file your taxes. Most CPA's, and the military legal help, with try to deduct everything they can to get you the biggest tax deduction. You may not always want to do that with rental properties because it will show them as not cash flowing for tax purposes (due to depreciation, repairs, etc) even if you technically did make money off of them. 

I prob wouldnt mess with your TSP (401k) plan either due to all of the fees you will get hit with and just save up everything you can instead.

If you end up back in Alaska hit me up! I'm in Anchorage and wouldn't mind meeting up and helping you out best I can.