All Forum Posts by: Blair F.

You need to do some research on your insurance and property taxes numbers. You are low. Insurance is a big one. Wind/hail insurance (for hurricanes) is expensive. 

Matthew Marchetti I use Quickbooks, Cozy, google drive and podio. Only one I pay for is quickbooks

@spencer Davis Yes this is possible. I bought 2nd property with FHA while having a conventional loan on 1st property. I was able to qualify for both loans at same time so was not a problem.

@Tyler Martin You can shop around and pick a completely new lender if you like. Whoever has good terms/good to work with. My advice is refinance while it is still your primary residence bc you can get owner occupy conventional loan rather than investment loan.

@Tyler Martin I have done the first into second househack. If you have been there 6 months I would focus on trying to improve your future appraisal for refi. What are surrounding homes valued at? What additional renovations can you do to raise value without over renovating. Then you have to determine when you are close enough to you 80/20 to worker with a lender and get the appraisal. I refinanced out of first FHA 1.5 yrs after purchase. Then 1.5 years later bought duplex number 2 with FHA.

Jimmy Ready I use Cozy. Have for a few years. Works great and is free. My rental is class A, mostly young professionals. They love being able to auto pay online and I love that I can see they have scheduled payments. You don’t need built in accounting software on first property. Get quickbooks set up, it auto imports your transactions.

If you can’t afford the closing costs, you can’t afford to buy the house, period.

Aaron Wakeman I am in the process of doing an FHA while having a conventional right now. Buying second duplex FHA. Since I will have rental income offsetting my payment, including the PMI, I am ok with it. Especially since my goal is to eventually refinance into conventional and drop it. But I only have duplexes. The idea of paying the payment on a single family is not for me.

I agree, don’t over leverage. How long have you had the duplex? Has the market risen? We househack a duplex. We were able to refinance out of FHA into conventional with 20% equity, 1.5 years after purchased. We did cosmetic updates, new kitchen, yard, etc. but we also had a rising market and improvement of neighborhood. Do you need to do all the improvements to raise the value? Can you cash flow them? I would be careful about taking on more debt. But it is possible to refinance, we are now looking for our second property.

@Tyler Martin I think it depends on your area and what you are looking for in a renter. We currently house hack a one bedroom duplex close to a university and it had been great. Pro- 1 bedrooms means only 2 occupants, so we don’t worry about sharing a wall with a family with loud small children. Most of our renters are young professionals, grad students etc. We always have lots of interest bc being a small 1 bedroom they can get into the neighborhood for one of the lowest prices on market. Cons- more turnover. People don’t plan to spend many many years in a 1 bedroom. But like I said we don’t have problems filling it, even if rental market softens for the larger rentals at higher price points. Just my 2 cents. It was a great way for us to get started.