All Forum Posts by: Lynn Z

I've been filing out the universal Fannie form today from my bank. Be careful to enter P&I only because they'll be trying to compare with credit report which screams PITI. Then enter taxes and insurance subtract from rents and that is what i entered as "net rental income".
Transfer to income statement on another page.

Bankers are sloppy about including full PITI, then taking off 25% of rents on top of that...still asking you for taxes and insurance. Your debt to income ratios will be way out of whack before you know it.

I also don't think they should treat a 15 year mortgage like a 30 and take 25% off of both as if they are the same situation.

Don't forget to tell them to add back into your taxable income your depreciation. For me that's $14000. Good luck. There's probably guidelines from Fannie on how to fill out their form if you hunt.

I've been living in a large duplex with tenants for the past 4 years. I tell them up front that I live there and usually except for emergencies and routine maintenance--we don't see each other. I have separate entrances though which really helps. They love having you near by when they want something like someone to hand the rent to.

I am renting to a military tenant. Called a working supervisor on base and checked out if his term will be as stated. Credit wasn't that important to me because he's a current home owner. Good tenants are hard to find in our area right now. I'd go with the "bird in hand is worth two in the bush".

My deductible is $5000. To lower it it would cost $200 more in premium. The house was just redone so I'll stick with the lower premium and higher deductible.

Rented mine finally - took a 6 months lease but got a great tenant. A real struggle and not many opportunities. We are having to be very creative with marketing rentals and everyone and his brother is advertising.

My daughter is a realtor but unless i"m desperate I sell FSBO. It's hard but all you have to do is be willing to have open houses, get those signs and flyers in the tube and be nice to people. With concerted effort, we sold two houses within 8-14 days on two opposite ends of our town. Who knows more about the house than you do?

When you have tight margins (and both of these had been redone) you price the houses as low as you can (for me that's no commission FSBO) and work it.

I'd sell both and rent for awhile until I got back on my feet. If you have a portfolio held loan to a land contract, As your mortgage bank if they have that type of mortgage.

Sometimes there are a number of solutions.
I feel the owners' instincts are many times better than the "professionals"

Yes, it's dead as a doorknob here is central South Carolina and coastal towns. You can be on Craigslist forever but there isn't anything coming off of it but more realtors, investors, property complex managers, desperate owners. Sign in the yard, ad in classified, postlets ad layout....nobody's moving or this Spring is dead. Rents not too high--just no traffic. Worst year I can remember.

I had a licensed appraiser from BOA do my newly renovated house and he came in extremly low. He came 3 hours late, I left him in the house, he saw the new kitchen, bath, roof, windows and came up with about $10,000 more than I paid for the house. I'd put $75,000 in it. That appraisal lowered my LTV and my HELOC offer went from 92,000 to 64,000 at prime plus 1.99%.
I got the appraisal out of Florida - took me 60 days after the closing. It was that style of appraisal - AVR or ARV generated by computer. He didn't even measure I don't think. My loan request was low - $115000 but I plan to use that low appraisal against my extremey high property tax assessment of $258000 which was done 6 months later by local county officials. It's still an appraisal. Will it work?

The only thing that's happening in my area in SC is young people who are renting from me and other landlords are buying homes to get the $8000 maximum incentive. There aren't replacements on the horizon despite signage, Craigslist, and the local classifieds. Agents aren't even holding open houses that I can tell. But property tax reassessments are through the roof. They don't care if nothing is selling.

I had a mortgage broker in Florida sub out my loan application and that resulted in 3 or 4 inquiries over a good length of time. Of course, then, after the damage was done he admitted he only had two vendors that they worked with. I wrote, complained, put a statement on my credit report but I learned to be cautious about having my credit pulled and always ask.

I discovered Wells Fargo was checking my credit every month and when I called they stated that was "routine", Closed that account. Didn't owe them anything and they were still pulling my credit.

If you have 4 inquiries lenders think you are close to bankruptcy. They will not loan you money--it doesn't matter that they have a full explanation.