New Investor in the Seattle/Tacoma, WA area

[Brandon Yokoyama]

Hello Everyone,

My name is Brandon Yokoyama. I am a new investor looking to relocate to the Seattle/Tacoma, WA area via house hacking.

My journey that brought me to these forums:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I realized an opportunity to earn more money by doing travel nursing so I up and left my hospital job to take advantage of the elevated rates for RNs during this time. My savings fund I had set up with the intention of investing started to grow large enough to where I could seriously start considering real estate and so I started to educate myself. From investopedia/other online articles to BiggerPockets podcasts to buying almost all of the BiggerPockets bookstore during Black Friday, I started using my free time to educate myself as much as possible. I feel at this point I've learned enough to start really making some big moves and so I'm making one of the biggest moves here and officially joining the forums today. 

My plan:

Ideally, I would love to buy an under market value multifamily property using either a standard FHA loan or a 203k loan. My plans would then be to renovate to gain equity, and hopefully have enough to either:

refi out of PMI

or 

refi for the purpose of adding cash to my BRRRR fund.

So first step for me is finding a house hack deal but I do hope to continue into BRRRRing properties afterwards. 

Thanks for taking the time to read through my intro, I look forward to meeting other like-minded people!

Brandon Yokoyama

[Steve Schulman]

I agree with Matt -- you cannot forget about your contractor that's a given.  Find someone you can not only trust but someone with experience doing these type of loans. I went through about 10 contractors and bids before settling on one. This delayed closing but luckily no more than 1 week.

So to answer your question @Brandon Yokoyama , having a solid contractor on your team is big. Link up with a contractor in the beginning who's done these type of loans before and is familiar with the process & all the paperwork. This it will help speed up the loan process an ensure certainty you'll have not only have no delay, but also no problem delivering/getting to the closing table.

As @Matthew Porcaro mentioned, a large majority of agents or realtors are uninformed or misinformed about the 203k process and feasibility of the loan. Which is why I believe having a voice of reason or an knowledgeable agent on your team who is going to kill any uncertainty^ with the sellers agent/attorney and doubt with the life cycle of the loan (# of days to close, extensive FHA guidelines, other hurdles/delays.) is very important. Especially in my market, having this team member on your side will go a long way when your FHA is going again conventional or full cash offers.