All Forum Posts by: Christopher Lightner

Definitely look into house hacking. You could use your VA loan to buy up to a quadruplex with no down payment, live in one unit and rent out the other three. After a year you could use an FHA style loan to repeat this process with a low down payment + PMI and have up to 7 units rented plus one that you live in.

If you found a property tomorrow and took a month to close, you could have 7 doors 13-14 months from now. And you could do it with $20k.

I'm an investor and a PM. I wear many hats :) What part of VB are you buying in? What are your concerns? Are you worried about your numbers?

What kind of feedback are you looking for @Brett Goldsmith?

Hi @Byron Bailey, welcome to Virginia Beach! When you say you are fairly new to the area, how long have you been living here? I'd be more than happy to meet with you and your partner. What kind of deal are you looking for? Are you looking solely in Virginia Beach, the southside, or the entire Hampton Roads area?

They should be coming from the seller. The tenants would have already paid the seller rent for say August on August 1 (hopefully), and if you close on August 15, then the seller should give you the rent that was paid for the rest of the month, being August 16-31.

Similar situation with the security deposits. The tenants should have paid them to the seller when they signed their leases. The seller should transfer the funds representing the deposits over to you at closing. That way you can return the deposits to the tenants according to the lease terms when they move out. If you don't get the deposits from the seller, you still have to pay the tenants back what they are owed.

Like I said, your agent, attorney, or whoever you are using should be taking care of that for you. Just ask. Hopefully it isn't too late if they didn't.

@Joshua S. I took a look at the listing (don't worry, I'm not going to steal your deal) and I think you are looking at more than $25k in repairs. Your list above covered just the superficial, but I don't think you are thinking about the big ticket items - roof, HVAC, appliances, structural issues...I know you are budgeting for them long term in your CAPEX, but from the looks of it, you are going to eat some of them either up front or fairly early on.

You also need to take into account landscaping for a property like that. 

If you found a partner to help you capitalize the deal, you could probably force this into being an alright investment, but I'm not sure it would be worth it. I didn't run any numbers though :)

Congratulations Erik! That's awesome to hear. Are you planning on house hacking for a year and building your portfolio with more properties? 

I'd recommend deciding on your screening criteria well in advance of having to look for tenants. When you have a vacancy and are having applications coming in is not the time to try to figure out what you are going to measure those applicants against.

Also consider whether you want to set future tenants up on automatic payments online or if you are okay with them just dropping a check at your door. I prefer the convenience of online payments, but you may not have that option with tenants you inherit.

Also, I'm sure you or your agent (if you are using one) thought of this, but make sure all of the security deposits and prorated rents for the closing month are getting sent your way. You don't want to be stuck with a torn up unit when one of the tenants moves out and no deposit to cover the damage.

I second what @Tom Valichka said about the application fee. It makes sure the applicant has skin in the game before they waste yours and their time.

@Deontae Posley I was looking on the Home Possible website, and most of the areas (at least in Virginia Beach) are income limit exempt due to the zone they are in. It still may be worth looking into.

Sounds right. That's the best I've seen for a conventional loan. You said you can only do conventional, so you don't qualify for FHA?

I have a portfolio lender I can put you in touch with, but I can't say whether or not he can offer you better terms.