All Forum Posts by: Keith Miller

Is everyone else seeing a slowing market in Missoula? I'm seeing houses sit for longer, and was recently the only offer on a property, it was nice to avoid the usual bidding war. 

https://links.e.stessa.com/u/c...

The Missoula Real Estate Meetup has three main goals:

1. Learn more about the Missoula Market

2. Make authentic connections

3. Share strategies and information.

As always, there will be no selling of any products or services, and it's always free to attend.

Our speaker this month is Leslie Laird, a Vice President at Juniper Capital. She is a lender in Missoula that offers a variety of different loans, including hard money. She is experienced in lending and will offer us a unique perspective on the current state of the lending industry.

Agreed, except I'd get a USDA 0% down loan, since it's a rural area. 

Yeah, nothing too much to add. I would really like to help change the laws so that Montana was a disclosure state, but it seems like an uphill battle. 

We got the back gazebo reserved, hope to see you there! Make sure to bring a warm coat, we'll be outside and it's going to be around 57 degrees. 

See you soon!

So what did you decide Grant? Are you still at your current job in Missoula, or have you taken the plunge?

Good call Sam. I've actually just finished up using both. About two years ago, I got a $70K HELOC on my primary residence, to put a down-payment on my backyard townhouses. Then, I just finished a cash-out refi of $165K. I'm only walking away with $97K though, because the first thing the bank did was pay off my HELOC. So you can mix and match, but with the rising interest rates, I'd lean a bit towards a refi. It all depends on what your goals are though.

Thanks for the response Dan! I'm wondering why I couldn't get credit for the roughly $2,500 I'll get from renting my primary residence once I move out. While that lease hasn't been signed yet, it's a very tight market, and I'm confident I could rent it quickly. That would improve the my cashflow, using the 75% rule, to $6,225. That gives me an extra $2,225 per month of income. But the trick is to find a bank that will count that lease that has yet to be signed. 

I'm going to reach out to a few banks that keep their loans in house, and see if they can provide more flexibility. 

Hello,

I'm running into issues with qualifying for a conventional mortgage to buy another owner occupied house here in Missoula MT, to build another backyard ADU, this strategy works great here. I'm hoping you can help me figure out how to qualify for a larger conventional mortgage, right now I can only qualify for about $450K with 5% down, which is my goal.

I work as a teacher, so I have $60K of income from that. I also have three leases bringing in a total of $5,800, balanced by only $4K of mortgages between the two properties. In addition, I can get another $2,500 from leasing my current house once we move out. So there's plenty of cash flow, but my mortgage broker is telling me that there is an issue because I was recently running those houses as Airbnbs. I was writing off all of the materials I used while adding sweat equity, so it made my tax returns look poor. As a result, he's saying he can't use any income from these properties, because it's not reflected in my tax return. All he can do is "zero out" the mortgages, which means I can only use my income  from teaching to qualify for a mortgage. 

Does anyone have any suggestions for alternatives? I'd like to do a 5% down conventional mortgage, so I can save my money for building the ADU.

I'm wondering if there are any banks that keep their owner occupied mortgages in house, so I could sidestep some of these regulations? 

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

Hey Justin,

Congrats on landing a multifamily, I'd love to chat about it at some point. Coincidentally, I've talked to three different commercial lenders in the last month, all Missoula-based. I was primarily asking them about financing ADU builds, as well as loans for multifamily. I assume they would consider a loan in Great Falls, but you'd have to double check. I'd recommend Jared Kuehn at First Security, John Horner at Opportunity Bank, and Kellie Carter at Stockmans. I'm a big fan of regional banks, hopefully one of these will be able to help you out.

Let me know if there's anything else I can assist with!

Keith