All Forum Posts by: Brian D Gleason

Thank you everyone so much for the replies. I suppose I should've stated that I am looking to live in this house for 2 - 3 years, then save up enough money to buy a new house. So my current thinking is get pre approved for a loan from multiple sources, then do my math and see if I can make the 20% payment on a home or not. Knowing how expensive housing is in CT, probably not. I'm not afraid to put a big chunk of change down on a house if needed because I will be saving quite a bit in the next few years (woo for deployments!). This is where I got confused, because most of these webinars about doing your first house hack seem to really be aimed toward people that can't make the down payment.

I am currently in the process of getting pre-approved for a loan, and looking to get into what many people are calling house hacking now. 

I have saved enough money to be able to comfortably put down 20% on a 200k house. Unfortunately, that doesn't get you much it seems in CT. Either the neighborhoods aren't good or it needs a ton of work (Which I am not opposed to, but I don't want to be overwhelmed) I am VA loan eligible, so whether I hit the 20% or not it doesn't matter, I won't pay PMI, it will only affect my monthly cash flow by lowering my monthly payments, correct? My friend, who is a real estate agent, says that hitting 20% on a conventional loan will get me a lower interest rate than the VA loan would. Either way, should i consider 250k+ houses since I don't have to hit 20% down due to the VA loan? Some people say put as little down as you can to cash flow, but I have this money now, I want to invest it wisely. Wouldn't my best option be to put the money towards the down payment?