All Forum Posts by: Jody Sperling

Steven, this is a really easy read to define what a co-signer needs to qualify: https://www.rocketmortgage.com...

As for rent by room, list it the same way you would if you were posting a multi-family or a whole single family home, on Zillow, Facebook, and Craigslist. Clarify in the ad that it's a multitenant house and you are renting bedrooms. 

You probably don't need to reinvent so much. Just change your target. Go for the single family home instead of the multi. If you have to explain to your dad why you're asking him to cosign on a home loan, give him a promissory note and let him know he is backing your wealth so that he will never worry about your future.

Once you have a home picked and you're going through the closing, post a room or two for rent. Sharing a single family house with strangers can be less than ideal, but it's safe and financially powerful. If you get a 3/2 and find two renters, you can cover the entire mortgage and 2/3rds of the utilities. By the end of just one year, you can find a third renter, buy a multifamily and repeat the process.

And at that point, you'll have naturally increased your income with rent coming in, plus added twelve months of credit history to the car, a house, and a credit card, making you a desirable borrower. Best of luck! 

(If your dad won't cosign, find someone who will. Maybe you have to put a deposit down on a cosigner and give him or her a fee for helping, but if you're creative, you can get it done well and safely.)

While I'm sure you can find plenty of help on BP for land buying and flipping, I find that RETipster is the best place to go for more targeted land conversations. Seth has built a really strong community over there with amazing resources. You might check it out in addition to this. Could be a game changer. Best of luck!

There are occasions where refinancing from a HELOC to a mortgage makes sense, and it can be done within the first weeks of owning a property outright, as in your situation. Credit unions are a great place to start for that. One issue you may run into is that a lot of banks and credit unions won't want to refinance for any price higher than the price you purchased the property before the property seasons for six months, though again, you may find credit unions who will.

That said, carrying debt on a HELOC is the most efficient kind of debt and can be paid down more rapidly and with greater flexibility than a mortgage, so always consider the efficiency of your money as well. Best of luck!

Ask the bank if they will merge the HELOCs and replace the mortgages by turning those HELOCs into a single, first-position, lien. Mortgages are the biggest money loser in the industry. If you use the HELOC like a bank account, putting all your money into it, you'll snowball debt at an exceptionally fast rate. Then when a deal comes along that you want to buy, you'll have cash to purchase it without getting loan approval meaning you can offer less cash, have your offer accepted faster, and spend less time waiting to take possession of the house, moving renters in quicker.

If the bank had it's way it would keep you always paying 30-year mortgages, but since you understand a HELOC, take advantage of the product to increase the speed of your wealth-building. Best of luck!

Anywhere that you can buy property under market value, force appreciation, cash flow on rent, or use real estate to build wealth and reduce taxes is a good place to invest. Anywhere in the United States has such opportunities.

If you've zeroed in on Millville, you must've seen some good indicators of a strong investor's market. Don't lean into fear and let it stop you from investing. Don't let your question be a stall to take action. The only regret I have in real estate investing is not buying more sooner. Best of luck!

There is a national company that has a product called a "Life Changer Loan", and you can get that product on any property you own. There are a few stipulations that tend to be a bit tougher to qualify for than a standard HELOC, but if you can get it, it is as advertised.

I have a local bank in Omaha that has two of my rentals combined on one First Lien HELOC, but they don't work out of state. You can probably find a local bank or credit union in your area that will offer investment HELOCs too. The best way to hunt them is to go to the bank, ask who works in commercial lending, get a meeting, and explain what you want.

It sounds crazy, I know, but people in the bank don't always know what they offer and don't offer. If you speak to a mortgage lender, s/he probably won't even know the investment HELOC exists. You have to get the right audience to get the real answer. Best of luck!

Use the savings to buy a list; mail the list for off-market properties; find a house selling for half of market value; take the deal to a hard money lender; get cash to buy the property and rehab it; take the rehabbed property to a bank and refinance all your money, or most of it back out of the deal.

If that's not your cup, find your local real estate meetups and post on their forums that you're looking for a low-money-down single family home where the seller would be willing to finance, and offer to pay above market value. You should get at least one interested partly.

Best of luck!

No market has been taken over. You have more competition in some areas than others. The easier the entry, the fuller the competition, but the harder the entry, the more experienced the competition. No matter where you focus, you'll have company.

I buy single family homes in one target zip code, drilling down into a select few neighborhoods by a development I believe is going to create extreme appreciation and elevate the type of tenant looking to occupy the walkable dwellings. Nine out of ten times, my offers are too low, and nine out of ten times I overpay when I do win, but I know what I want and I'm ready for the work it takes.

Know what you want and you'll find it's not so hard to get. Time consuming at times, stressful, frustrating, but doable. Best of luck!

If you're not paying the power bill, I don't see that it makes a difference. A price-conscious tenant will find ways to save money, if he's worried about the bill.

Perhaps I'm just lucky, but my properties have attracted A++ tenants and all of them have subpar insulation, and oldish windows in a cold climate.

I hate when people say, "They're just renters," but I don't mind when we say, "We're running a business." For me, that means spending on the things that make a place feel like home: really nice bathrooms and kitchens, and saving on the things that make the home less profitable: stone coated steel roofs, hardwood floors and the like.