Financing Options - Active Duty Military Looking For Advice

[Gerard Magee]

Hello, Everyone,

My name is Gerard Magee. I’m an active duty military member of the Air Force that recently caught the real estate bug after reading several Rich Dad, Poor Dad books as well as Brandon Turner’s Rental Property Investing. My entire outlook on investing has been changed and revitalized based on this literature. I am very excited to become a part of the BiggerPockets Community and I hope to one day help someone else as much as I hope I can be helped. I am looking for advice based on my current situation described below:

I have been in the military for 18 years and I will be retiring in two. My wife and I currently own and live in a home in Yorktown, VA that cost $408,000 (Purchased in Dec 2019, low equity built up at this point) We utilized a VA loan to acquire the home and I am stationed here at nearby Langley Air Force Base. We love our home and intend to be here long-term, so this makes a live-in "house hack" option for investing with another zero down VA loan non-viable. We currently have approximately $25K to invest in a property and are saving around $3,000 a month to increase this pot. We are interested in multifamily units and I have recently found several amazing deals that make sense in the $250-300K range. Unfortunately, we don't have enough to meet the standard 20% down payment requirement for a conventional loan. I have reached out to sellers regarding seller-financing options, but to no avail. We both have outstanding credit and we would have saved more had we established this goal earlier. My wife is also a government employee with stable income, and I have already aligned a position to join the government civilian sector upon retirement. Neither of us has any connections with private lenders or other viable sources of financing to support our investment aspirations.

Enough of the background I suppose… My question is: Are there any ways that we could get into a $250- 300K investment now without the 20% down payment and no live-in option knowing that we’ll be able to make up the difference relatively quickly due to our stable jobs? Or is this simply a pipedream and we need to wait it out until we save enough money to cover the down payment? I am excited to get started, but I understand the necessity for patience with the buy and hold strategy that we are pursuing. I have just seen several deals that I would love to take advantage of recently advertised on various sites.

Any advice or suggestions for Rook will be greatly appreciated. Again, thank you for taking the time to read my long-winded post and hopefully respond.

[Brian Garlington]

First of all, Thank You for your service. My father was career Air Force and I am a Navy Veteran.

As a Realtor with the MRP (Military Relocation Professional) I see people in your situation quite a bit sir. 

Your VA entitlement can be used more than once as you know....and it can be used on 1-4 unit properties. I recently worked with a veteran here in Oakland, CA who had not used up all her VA "funds" and she bought a SFR with an in-law unit in it. Since it's just her, she is living in the in-law unit and rents out the house so she is literally living in the San Francisco Bay Area for free.

Just throwing ideas out for you sir.