Apologies, I should have provided more details and been more specific
1) I had a few lenders that had no issue factoring in rent, which I can’t believe is much of a question considering my target area is north NJ not too far from the NYC area, one of the most consistent and highest rental areas in the country. The problem is one lender only qualifies me for a very low amount to begin with, other lenders require 15% down for multi-family, and the one person that did allow all three (qualified me for a decent amount, 10% down and factored in rental income) recently let me know he is no longer a loan officer.
2) I’m less concerned with rehab money. In my target area it’s almost a certainty that I would not find a purchase price low enough that I would qualify for a rehab loan over $30K as well. Unless of course it’s a total rehab but I have no experience with that plus that would get me into the $100K and above range for rehab loan which I probably wouldn’t qualify for anyway. I have a lot in savings so my focus would be to get the $30K or less rehab loan if possible and combine that with sweat equity, ie doing whatever I could myself (granted which isn’t much) and paying out of pocket.
3) The issue with putting down less than 10% is that it would make the monthly payment so high that I would no longer be even close to qualifying for a mortgage that would apply to my target market. And I don’t want to put down much more than 10% because that will eat up too much of my savings especially since I likely have to go out of pocket for improvements anyway.
My exact situation is that I make about $80K a year (which is low to barely average in the northeast), have over $100K in savings and personal investments (excluding 401K). The low end for multi-family's that need work in north NJ is about $400-430K or more. Which means I would need to be able to qualify for $475-500K range to even have a chance. Which I cannot do unless rental income for the other unit is factored in. I'm aware taxes are a big factor since they can vary between $6-12K+ in NJ but some of the areas I look in can fall in the lower range. And yes, I could always put a lot more money down to make something happen but then that makes it way less of a good deal and it's already a situation where a true BRRRR is not possible anyway. Sure it still may be a good investment overall long term but I don't want to have all my savings tied into one thing as I'm looking to invest my money in other things as well. I'm also 40 years old so I don't have the time of someone that is 23. Not an ideal situation, I know.
I made a life altering mistake. In April of last year (2022) I found a place that was almost perfect that would have accepted if I offered about $470K but the lender then said I couldn’t qualify for that because the taxes for that property were over $12K. Looking back I should have just put more money down. The interest rate was less than 4.5% then and even though I have a higher salary now than I did then, I pretty much qualify for less now given the higher interest rates, even less inventory than then and higher floor asking prices. But it is what it is and I just have to do the best that I can in the current situation.
4) Unless I’m not aware of something out of the box, I’m already aware that I could “get a partner” or “get a co-signer” or “borrow money from family or friends” etc. Unfortunately those aren’t possibilities for me and I thought that that was assumed. Again, my apologies for not stating that first.
