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Updated over 5 years ago,
Finally Ready and First time posting
Hello Bigger Pockets! My name is JR, and I'm finally ready to dive into this and ready to get my first deal. I've been a PRO member for the past 5 months, been listening to podcasts and webinars, reading books, analyzing properties with the BP calculators, and trying to learn as much as I can while getting my finances in order and saving up for a down payment and rehab costs. (Thank you Brandon Turner, Josh Dorkin, and David Green, you guys are amazing and thank you for all that you do! I would consider myself a BP student as 95% of my learning has come from this website, books, and all of your podcasts!)
I live in the Chicagoland area, and I'm looking to invest in a 2-4 unit multi-family house hack and try to BRRRR it as well. I would like to use an FHA (+ possibly 203k) loan and am looking for any recommendations on lenders and any recommendations on honest investor friendly agents in Chicago that would like to work with me. The areas I'm interested in are Logan Square/Humboldt Park (I know quite difficult to find a good deal), up north to Avondale, Irving Park, and anywhere along 90/94 or the CTA Blue line. Also wouldn't mind house hacking in Berwyn, and furthest south I would go to Bridgeport/McKinley Park/Pilsen.
I know the next step I need to take is getting pre-approvals from different lenders and see what they offer and what I would qualify for. My credit score is currently around 780, my debt to income ratio is <20%, and my overall income excellent, although most of my debt is due to school loans, which I'm steadily paying off. So hopefully I shouldn't have much problem getting pre-approvals.
My question is, should I get pre-approvals first before talking to agents? or vice versa?
Also, with regarding pre-approvals, should I just use the recommended lenders from BiggerPockets (better.com, credible, guaranteedRate, lendingtree, etc.)? or do any of you have recommendations for FHA (203k) lenders in Chicago? I have accounts with PNC bank and Chase, but should I even bother with them?
Also, any recommendations for investor friendly agents would be greatly appreciated!!
Thank you for reading through this post, and really appreciate all of you who participate in the BP forum and share your knowledge and information!