Hi BP,
This is my first post and I'm hoping that some experts may have come across my scenario before. I have found a great 2B/2B investment condo that is tenant occupied (tenant has occupied for 8 years already) and it's cash flowing good (even with HOA). The problem is the purchase price. The condo is only $55K, which is causing problems qualifying for a traditional mortgage as an investment property. I don't have that amount of cash on hand, but I can do 20% down. However, lenders have brought to light that state laws prevent them from charging me what they would need to charge me in order to finance this as an investment mortgage.
Purchasing it with a conventional mortgage as my primary residence would work (I don't currently own any other property), it is not what I am trying to do here. While I could move in temporarily and claim this as my primary, it would likely involve kicking the tenant out (which I don't want to do) and somewhat defeat the purpose.
After researching and speaking with lenders, it sounds like my best bet may be the credit union. My credit union, TDECU, doesn't do conventional mortgages on condos to begin with - period. They do say that they have loans for investment properties starting at $30K or more, so that may be an option, but I don't have details on how long of a term these loans typically are. I'm guessing they would not be over 30 years like a mortgage.
I am fairly new to the Houston area and do not know of any private lenders personally. From what I have looked into, that is really more of a short term solution that probably wouldn't be suitable for a buy & hold property anyway.
There are plenty of other properties out there and yes, I wait and build up more of a down payment to get into a conventional loan price range, but this is a good opportunity that I would at least like to know I've explored every option before giving up on. Does anybody have thoughts or suggestions? Maybe somebody has been in this situation and can let me know what they ended up doing.
