All Forum Posts by: Allison Stewart

@Sagar Gulati if you feel the need to have a "LEGAL document", you need to hire a lawyer and have them prepare one for you. I think that's excessive, but if that makes you feel protected, that's the only way to guarantee the document is legal. 

@Sagar Gulati, disclosing the requirements are as simple as saying they need to pass a criminal background check and credit check, or whatever your requirements are. We put that in our ads, so the application can be generic. 

@Costin I., no Cozy does not, but if you are managing your own rentals, you have to do that either way - paper application or Cozy application. 

If things go bad, you have the information from Cozy. It doesn't go away, plus, you can download it or save it any way you need. Plus, you have their full information on the lease if they get to that step. 

And yes, Cozy provides both the criminal background check and the credit report to the Landlord. It also has references, previous rental history, employment history etc. It had plenty of information for us to make an informed decision on whether or not to proceed with an applicant. 

It was exactly like when we used a realtor, except I had personal access to all of that information.

You could just use something like Cozy. The prospective tenants pay directly to Cozy and then Cozy gives you a report on their criminal and financial history. 

@Eddie Garcia yes, we ended up doing a Home Equity Loan with PenFed as opposed to the HELOC. It suited our needs better. It was pretty straight-forward actually - not hard at all. We just applied, we had to pay for an appraisal (which we knew we would have to do), and they approved us for the amount we wanted. Took maybe a month - but it would be quicker without the appraisal.

Are you looking to owner-occupy a duplex? Do you prefer north or south? Do you need an area with a good school district? There are far too many variables to answer this question well without any other details. 

But that FAQ also addresses a situation where you have the first mortgage - it's not gone by the time of closing for the Home Possible mortgage, in which case, the monthly payment is rolled into the LTI ratio (which for us is just fine since the rental income more than covers the mortgage). That's what was confusing about that - they seem to indicate that you CAN close a Home Possible mortgage with another outstanding mortgage. Edited to add: I just re-read it and it does state that there has to be a documented sale pending for that to occur though. Aha. 

No, we have a conventional mortgage as our first mortgage as well. We didn't use FHA and we still don't want to use FHA due to the MPI requirements being too burdensome. Would that be our only option for a less than 15% down payment? We bought our current duplex with 10% down in 2017.

@Dan Mackin, on the Freddie Mac FAQs page for the Home Possible mortgage, it references the sale of a previous home before closing on a Home Possible mortgage (http://www.freddiemac.com/homepossible/home_possib...). I haven't found anywhere where it says that it has to be only for a first mortgage - can you point me in the direction of that information? We are curious because we are currently looking to house hack our second duplex and would like to take advantage of a 5% down payment product if possible. 

This may be up @Scott Smith's alley

Seems like your best (or easiest) option is to just lower the rental rate if you can't get anyone to rent at your current rate.