All Forum Posts by: Josh Green

Agreed with Ray above - if you're doing an owner occupied loan, the only way to qualify beyond your DTI/Income would be to have rental income counted toward your purchase. This will be easiest on a multifamily but possible too, with a SFR + ADU situation assuming the ADU is detached and legal. Using other loan types not only are non-conforming for you to occupy (DSCR), but the downpayment minimum and the rate will be much higher kind of defeating the purpose of doing a house-hack.

You mentioned you're looking for your "next house-hack".  Have you considered your current one being used as income to help qualify?  This is a little tricky but I've had a few buyers able to do this in their transition period between property 1 and 2 and qualify using @ray above.

I would recommend getting on a call with @Ray to see your options as far as lending goes and then I'd be happy to take you from there and show you what you can do in this market as for house-hacks. Just about to close on one with @ray for a client in Tampa that we got at an absolute steal - located in seminole heights, fully renovated, 3bd house + detached 1bd ADU and secured it for under $450k. Tough to get a good house-hack that is turnkey, in a good area, and under $500k generally.

 Hey Adam, goodluck on taking a new job and making the big move and upgrade living here in the Tampa/St pete area!  I've done several house-hacks personally and many, many house-hacks for clients.  There's a ton of creative ways to do it here so you can really hone in where you want to be on the profitability to comfortability scale.  With any house-hack comes some sacrifices as well: factors such as location, value-add vs turnkey, size, rent to price ratio, short-term vs mid-term vs long-term renting, and your ability to jump into the next one quickly all depend on you as the buyer.  Your experience, cash position, risk tolerance, handy skills, and income levels all will play a role in what will be the best house-hack for you or not.  Feel free to DM when you're making the move here and we can connect and get you on a consultation call to hone in what your options would be! :)

 Thanks for the tag! I don’t service that far south though!

You should House-Hack! Get the benefits of the primary loan, low downpayment, beginner experience as a landlord, etc. If you buy a primary first, the second one will require not only a good 15-20% down, but your DTI will potentially limit you on what you can qualify for on the next. If you buy an investment first, it's got to be a screaming deal or you'll see lower returns than the combined savings+income of doing a house-hack (you got to live somewhere!). :)

 You have any photos? DM me - if it’s just tile lifting that’s a different matter.  Sometimes moisture gets under the tile and they lift. Especially for a rental, unless there’s structural signs of major shifting or an engineering report on recent changes to the foundation I question if you really need to spend money on that.  

 Weird!  At first I thought you were one of my clients haha.  I just closed a 3-plex in St Pete a couple months ago with a client Ben Dugoni who just got married. Anyway! I think you hit it on the head - depleting your cash is, in my opinion, a calculated risk worth taking due to your savings rate.  You can further mitigate risks with items like a home warranty, sewer line warranty, etc that will cover big ticket items. Not to mention the fact that you can get financing with 0% interest with a credit card if you were in a pinch.  My vote: 100% go for the 3plex that is going to cash flow over an "smaller" investment that won't pencil as well.  It is so important to buy property that you set yourself up for success with (they pencil out) and mitigate the risks of loss.  That is more important that buying cheap and having worse investments you hold or end up having to offload at a loss.  Lastly, I always caution clients from taking advice from people that might not be experienced investors.  For example, my parents and inlaws don't invest in real estate.  Had I listened to their advice, I'd be in a much lower tax bracket and have a much lower net worth.  Doesn't mean they give terrible advice but I find it often comes from a place of fear or inexperience and discourages action taking rather than encouraging action taking.  

Feel free to reach out if you want to discuss over the phone more details - I'm a fellow investor here.  I've done 3 house hacks, have a couple long term rentals, and bought a couple STRs last year and the year before all before hitting 29! :) I also co-host STRs and that's an area I'm super passionate about in real estate so it'd be fun to share ideas/questions!

 Feel free to text me - I have a lot of connections with property managers that have large inventory for rentals.  There might be some available so I would be happy to connect you.  Just text me your budget and needs and I'll get you connected.

 Hey Sushree!

Depending on your cash position, you might actually be able to buy 2 awesome STRs here in the Tampa Bay market for a total gross revenue up to $250k!  I bought a couple myself last year and over 25 of them for clients in Pinellas county.  I also co-host for just 15% so more cashflow to you there.  Feel free to DM if you have any questions :)

 Hey Mariangela! I own and have represented over a dozen buyers the last 12 months in Clearwater for STRs.  Most my clients are out of state and I have a furnishing/design crew as well as co-hosting services at a discount for clients to really help maximize your returns and be as hands-off as possible.

1) Focus on good areas for both appreciation long-term and strong rental demand.  When markets are up, everyone is feasting but when it slows like right now, the C and D class neighborhoods are having the harder time to fill vacancies.  There's pockets all over the greater Tampa Bay Area that are B class and up but balancing that with a decent cap rate is going to be tricky unless you either have low cap rate expectations or are will to do value add to the property or being more creative such as using a short or midterm rental strategy or even room by room with padsplit.

2) Verify as well the 1031 is going to allow "like for like" into a single family.  You didn't mention if those funds are from a residential real estate rental or commercial.  

3) Shameless plug for Tampa: you will definitely find higher cap rates in cheaper places.  Maybe Jacksonville, smaller towns, or other places "less desirable".  However, Tampa+Orlando are projected to lead the state in appreciation over the next decade so that's why I personally chose to put all my focus and even moved across country to invest in the Tampa Bay market.  Appreciation is far more valuable for the seasoned investor and it's no mystery why the BP podcast has been talking about that over cash flow a lot in there more recent episodes.