All Forum Posts by: Breonna Mahana

Quote from @Kenny Smith:

@Breonna Mahana

Totally agree with everything the above are saying!  It is critical to find an agent who has your best interests at heart, local knowledge, and also is a fellow investor!  Our Real Estate Team, The FI Team here in Denver, specializes in helping fellow house hackers/investors find properties that work for them.

If you'd like to chat further about house hacking/investing, I'd be happy to do so.

Just curious, so the agent knew of the issues with the home and did not disclose to you?  Typically, a buyer's agent can ask the listing agent for the seller's property disclosure which should provide any knowledge or issues known to the seller (such as a prior inspection).  This is something I always ask for prior to putting in offers even though technically the listing agent doesn't have to provide it until you are under contract.

 Everyone, thank you so much for your advice, experience, assistance, and insight ❤️. 

No, we were not exclusively using that agent, we saw a house, scheduled a tour, & she was extremely dishonest about the state of the house.  I informed her we weren’t pre-approved or anything. It was a very unbecoming situation, & made me uneasy. If I didn’t have previous experience seeing how inspections get glossed over to seem “good” but they’re actually  “defective” I wouldn’t of known to ask at all. Overall, we went about it backwards. (Without an agent on our side) (independently searching) 

We now have an extremely professional & experienced REA/REI guiding us through step by step. 
My husband never told me he was our legit Agent, so that why I was posting … I thought he was just mentoring us, but he’s our agent so I apologize for the misunderstanding on my behalf. We also have spoken to Craig from your team as well who is phenomenal with endless amounts of information. Kelly has met with him.

It was very difficult for us to find somebody who would actually be able to relate to my husband & I- We are not your typical House Hackers, our background is very much different than others, and our ambition/hustle is a little different tooo. Thank you again. 

Quote from @Bill B.:

If you make over $200k and “only” have $10k in stocks and $30k in downpayment savings I assume you’ve had some recent financial difficulties? I would spend 1 year tying to “get by” only only $100k per year. That would give you another $100k for reserves/downpayment. 

As mentioned above. You have to fix your credit scor, at least 50 points. It might be something terrible that will age off in the next year? With 3 years of $200k+ year of income there’s no reason for a credit score below 760. Maybe the “no debt” is some recent payoffs of bad debt?

Go to a mortgage broker and have them pull your credit or look at least look at credit karma and it should be obvious what the problem is. You might be better of waiting 6-12 months anyway if there’s any kind of market pullback or we finally get lower rates in 12-24 months. 

Good luck. 

THANK YOU everyone for your insight, advice, lived experience, and responses.
I apologize for the delayed response on my behalf.

We were told that using 4 incomes wasn't possible, and maybe that's because they weren't comfortable using all 4, that's neither here nor there.

General summation of this post is; We need to meet with a Denver Broker, I need to work on my credit, and we need to save. Those are our next steps. 

2 years ago, THE FIRST TIME I opened Credit Karma, my score was 478!
Let me say that again!!!!!!!!!!!
MY CREDIT SCORE WAS 478! Remind me how high your score is supposed to be when the first time you learn about financial ANYTHING is 28? (I just turned 30 in July for context) Impossible right? Right! You don't know what you don't know. I didn't have anybody present in my life to educate or even speak to me ONCE about finances or budgeting or saving, or credit, or credit cards, or interest rates, or owning a home, or investing, or stocks, OR ANYTHING! My husband taught me 3 years ago before we were married. So saying I got a late start is an understatement. (millions of ppl are raised by family that are mentally and financially poor, I was one)

Neither of our positions are commission, higher paying positions are salary. 


I have no liens, no collections, no car payment, no defaulted expenses, and only have around $5,000 of credit anyways. (Paid off about a week ago, thats why)
I do have $2,000 in medical debt (disputing because I was in a coma & was signed up for Medicaid by my mother in the hospital before I had surgery in 2017) 

Husband started 2nd hourly position 7 months ago (same field)
I began working 2nd job 2 months ago (with a break due to severe health issues)
Both positions are in the same field of work.
Day positions; Salary
Night Positions; Hourly

I now understand that we have to wait at least 6 more months to get pre-approved.

Beforehand, we only worked 1 job, then realized it'd take forever to save up enough money for RE, so we both decided we'd work two jobs for the next 2 years and see how much money we could save.

After all of the feedback I have received, in general I think it's best for us to wait at least another 6 months, for all the reasons all of you have explained.

That gives us time to build our savings, save, save, save, and learn. 
 This entire thread was extremely insightful and helpful. 

Thank you all, I really appreciate all of your responses.

I genuinely need answers from professionals. My husband & I have spoken to 6 different lenders. Each one we have spoken to gave us a different answer to why we can't get approved, please help me understand why.

Our situation is this: We both have 2 full time jobs each, have employment history for the past forever, we make $100k annually each. 

Paid off all our debt, have a little over $10,000 in stocks.

His credit score; 730-760 / My credit score; 610-630

We have been in the same field of work for 3+ years, left previous positions because of higher salary with no gap in positions. By January, we will have $30k saved for a downpayment, we are shooting for a house in the 400k-500k range. 

Reasons being told no by these lenders:

1. We can only use 1 of your jobs each, nobody can use both of your combined income, that's not how lending works.

2. Income is enough, but haven't had same job for 2+ years, so that's unreliable income, can't use it ( worse explanation ever)

(even though we left previous position cordially due to a higher salary, doesn't matter)

3. Yes, WE DO have a program for you being Black, but you make way to much money to qualify for the program. (In order to qualify for the program for being black, you have to earn waaaaaaaay under the median annual income; P.S I don't)

4. Well, if we go based on your employment, on a 500k house, you'll need $120k as a downpayment.

5. Even with $30k as a downpayment, we are going to need 6 months worth of cash reserves; then we can TRY, no promises.

Why are we getting all these different answers, that all equal NO, not right now.

We obviously are going to have to push back our purchasing date, and we will continue to save a ridiculous amount of money. My question is why is it so difficult, why so many different explanations, and what's our best approach?

Please & Thank you!

My husband & I are doing the same thing, we are saving up for a down payment as well. I know that having a w2 job is extremely important for getting qualified. 

I think that you should keep saving and try to get pre-qualified first, so you know what you can actually afford. In the mean time meet with local REA, Investors, and anybody and everybody you can in the business. Meet in person with them, and pick their brain as much as your able too! What I will say is that we both work 2 full time jobs, and we aren't even sure if the company will be able to accept both incomes. You can't really create a strategy, if you don't know what you can and cannot afford.  

I was a roofer in CO. The reason they ask you to file a claim is due to most roofing companies being Insurance Restoration Companies. They see what your insurance will pay for, this takes into consideration if you have a ACV Policy or RCV policy, when the hail damage/wind damage occurred,(AllState is the one of the only insurance companies I've sen that will cover damage from up to 2-years from the damage date), how many layers of shingles are on your roof (Wood Shake) (2+ layers of shingles), and if the soffit, facia, and gutters are also damaged. 

The adjuster then comes in and bids on the extra work that the roofing company had to do. 

Which they get them to cover almost 100% of the replacement (depending on your policy and age of your roof)

If you have a roof that's less than 5 years old they typically won't take out a ridiculous amount of depreciation, which goes back to if you have an (Actual Cash Value) (Recoverable Cash Value) policy.

Always shoot for Class 4 shingles when getting a roof replaced and always always always ask for a low deductible coverage, don't let insurance convince you of a high deductible for a cheaper monthly/yearly rate. I've met with people and their roof had 75% of their shingles missing, but they were told to get a policy with a $10,000.00 deductible, which literally costs more than the roof replacement. They couldn't afford the deductible, therefore the roof never got fixed.

Insurance rates on roofs NEVER raise due to filing a claim, they raise by zip code due to weather; impact from storms. Very common misunderstanding I think intentionally, so insurance companies don't have to fork out money for a claim. 

Every state has different policies.

I will say that my second job is working at a huge national nonprofit very similar to catholic charities. From what I have first hand witnessed, from upper management , CM, to my position, how they screen people for their sites, how they filter people out, I would recommend just going through Section 8. I haven't purchased a property yet (will be in January), but my husband & I are opening a safe living space. The way it will work is  we will have all say so of who comes in & out of our house, guidelines and regulations, and there would be no outside party with overriding say on who comes, goes, and stays. I know that their decision making process is fully emotional in that field, along with picking and choosing based on their personal connections with who they serve. 

I will say BEWARE, again beware.

Quote from @Greg R.:

Congrats on your financial success. Not a lot of people have their debt paid and are able to save that kind of $. 

A plan needs to be based on you and your husband's goals. Specifically what kind of investing are you wanting to do? BRRRR, cash flow, STR, flip, etc.

If you want an "official" business plan, that's fine. However, something informal can be just as good. It can be a written doc that contains your goals, ambitions, short-term/ mid-term/ long-term actions, etc. Basically a way to hold yourselves accountable for what you need to do and keep your goals in sight. 

Thank you so much. Yes, everything we listen to advised us to take care of it first. I know DTI is important in the approval process (we didn't have that much thankfully).

We are shooting for our first House Hack, mainly long term for our first with the goal of living in the duplex, while tenants paying most of our mortgage.Then STR after with Safe Living Space concept.

I didn't exactly specify in my OP that we need a business plan template for an investor. I know how to create a business plan, executive summary, pitch, and such due to us owning a small business previously but I don't know how to adequately and/or properly pitch to an investor on paper, so nothing too complex but nothing simple either. 

Quote from @Kelly Mahana:

Quote from @Giezy Villavicencio:

You mentioned education for the past 2 years and that you're so so so ready.....what do you need a business plan for and how would a template business plan help in any way with that?? 

I'm a little lost lol 

I think I forgot to add a few important aspects in here. We need a business plan because we are going to open a Safe Living Space, we have almost everything ready except before we didn’t have anybody interested in investing. Now, we have a interested investor (extremely vetted and very successful) after we complete our first House Hack, which will be early 2023. We owned a mobile hot dog cart for a year (wasn’t happy and wasn’t our dream) so we know how to create a business plan and all of that, but I want a real estate business plan template to modify and correct. Also, we have never created a business plan for an investor, so I need advice on that entire process  

 I want to apologize, I am new to BP site, so I accidentally logged into my husband's account due to us sharing iCloud family account on Apple.

Husband (34M) & I (30F) are working two full-time jobs, saving 1k a week, paid off all of our CC debt, & will be purchasing either a duplex/single family home with ADU. We have been self educating ourselves for the past two years and now finally have a very clear path on how to achieve our goals. I'm nervous & excited & anxious & so so so ready to begin this journey.

I was hoping somebody on here as a business plan template that can guide me thru this process.

I tried to use the one on BP but the file downloads as empty.

First, thank you for responding. I really appreciate your advice. I will for sure start my search here. Thank you again and have a peaceful Labor Day weekend!