All Forum Posts by: Colin Courtney

I live in Knoxville, but I'd be open to meeting in Sevierville if that's the consensus.

Thanks for the advice!

I'm in a situation where the home I moved into (about 16 months ago) was a new construction in a very new/empty part of the neighborhood, and the appraisal pretty much matched the purchase price... but since then, the neighborhood has filled with new homes with similar or worse specs that are being listed and sold for more than $10-20k+ above that appraisal.

So my question then is: when a lender looks at LTV, do they calculate this based on the fair market value as of today, or would they need to use my original appraisal figure? I'm assuming with a lender like PenFed who doesn't need to do an appraisal if the CLTV is below a certain value, that they're using some formula to ballpark the current value. I'd like to know what that is (or maybe I just have to contact them for that), because my neighborhood is so new and booming that every agent and investor I've talked to in the local area is hard-pressed to make solid evaluations beyond what sale prices are tending to pop up.

I'm currently in the process of fixing up my primary residence in preparation for an appraisal to use for obtaining a HELOC. I was wondering if anyone else has gone through the process of obtaining a HELOC through a lender, and what tips/advice you would share for the process? I'm also wondering which lenders provide good rates and turn-around times for setting up the HELOC (and should I go local or go with a nationwide lender).

Now that's creative! I've never heard of that before.

Yes, that's another option I've been considering is finding a house with a basement or some other space I can rent out. That would certainly help with the square footage issue.

That's a lot of good info, and you've really validated all the pros I was considering with house hacking. Yeah, the only real con I can come up with for my situation, potentially, is finding enough square footage. But depending on the property, maybe we can just suck it up for a while :p I'll keep my eyes open for something.

Has anyone here had any experience with house-hacking via multiplexes? I really like the idea, but I'd like to hear pros/cons from people who have actually done it before. I also have a large family (5 kids!) so square footage could potentially be an issue at play.

I'm really blown away by the great responses, thanks everyone. I'm really hearing a lot of good things about multi-plexes, especially since financing up to four-plexes is in the same residential bracket as traditional single family homes. I'm thinking a mix of the two sounds like a good bet with buy-and-hold, so I'll start looking around and seeing what's available while I get financing setup.

Thanks, that's all good advice. I've been particularly concerned about accurately estimating closing costs since that's usually the one that comes back to bite you at the end of the deal (in my experience at least buying my personal residences). I'll definitely look into joining the Knoxville REIA so I can hopefully get a good start and meet some knowledgeable folks :)