All Forum Posts by: Ramona Hall

$400 to $500 per month cash flow ( after refinancing ) is a pretty good return. I think lowering the pmi is a great strategy unless you want to take the profit out and buy up. I would look at what you can buy with $30-$40K and what would the cash flow look like. If it's the same as where you are at then just keep the current rental. Refinance into a Conventional Loan and then down the road buy another owner occupied property with cash you have saved.

A two to 4 unit owner occupied allows you to get in the game as a landlord with a minimal investment. That is the only reason I mentioned it. Your girlfriend could be on as well if you want to own property together. It could also help your buying power with more income if she is on. Keep working on the FiCO score. It really drives everything :)

Month to month lease :) always ! A lease only protects the tenant.

Work on the credit score first. It will help a ton when getting financing. Credit is easy to fix. Pay down any credit card balances under 50% of high limit. No late payments moving forward. Catch up any past due. The rest will happen :) After you get the score up buy a two unit owner occupied using an FHA loan. They require 3.5% down. Call me if you need help or have questions. I hope this helps. rh

Vinyl Plank in living room kitchen bath and hallways. Carpet in bedrooms. I buy high end stuff and it looks and holds up great !

Manufactured Homes need to have an "affidavit of affixture" in place. That means the Vin Number has been retired by the state you are in.

We can generally use FHA, or Conventional. ( owner occupied )

Fha needs 3.5% down and Conventional needs 5% down. Some companies have an overlay which requires more down. ( we require 20% down on Conventional Loans )

Credit Score generally needs to be mid 600's

Also most lenders require a structural Engineer's Cert as well as the affidavit of affixture. 

Ramona

We do use Schedule E as the deciding factor when calculating total debt to income.

Sometimes we can exclude a one time improvement that kills the bottom line. Say a new roof.  That is not an expense that comes up every year.

The other strategy in schedule E net profit or loss is that a lender can add back depreciation expense. So let's say your net loss that year was $3000 and you took $5000 in depreciation. We can actually show a $2000 profit for that year. Depreciation is an unrealized loss.  If you have the choice to take the expense or depreciate. It's "sometimes" better to depreciate if your goal is to finance a few more houses in the coming year.

I hope this helps.

Ramona

I agree with George. Take the longer term and save capital.

When financing the next property banks need about 6 months in reserve per PITI ( after your down payment ) Also, saving for major repairs is a good strategy so you are not paying high interest rates to replace a roof or something.

Capital is King and if the property cash flows on a 30 year it is sometimes a good idea to save cash.

I hope this helps.

Ramona

This helped me a lot. http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/artic...

I use quickbooks and really like it. I hope this helps.

Thank you. That was my thought as well but wanted to see how someone else who has used quickbooks for several units had it set up.