All Forum Posts by: Justin Hammerle

@Hannah Simpson - Are speaking of a pre-approval?  Pre-approvals shouldn't be property specific and are given as a blanket amount. Offer submission and acceptance should be based on pre-approval.  Once you have the option, you can go ahead with your DD without risk of losing the property to another buyer.

@Christine Hull - Risk adjusted returns.  6% on holding a note on a rental property, or 10% in a S&P index that you can liquidate immediately?  Typically non-bank lenders are looking for 16% per annum min as tradeoff for the risk they are accepting.

@Stephen Scire - would you be using this as your primary residence, or just as an investment property?

@Rahnesha White - If you go FHA you would also want to take into consideration the cash savings you are getting from the down payment. Most go with FHA because of the 3.5% down payment and favorable interest rate when compared with conventional. If this is not as important to you, then you could go conventional to forego the mortgage insurance.

In terms of the repairs; FHA is more restrictive than conventional but not significantly; conventional will still require an adequate roof life. A roof replacement alone could run $10k+ depending on the size of the property.

@Joseph Musi - You could consider personal goals, company culture alignment, and commission structure.  Just starting out you could likely benefit from a larger brokerage that has a lot of free training resources; but if you already have a coach, that may not be as important.

Also, what markets do you want to be in and what type of properties do you want to focus on?  Based on that take a look at the current listings and see what the top brokerages are.

@Natasha Shamoon - As a first time homebuyer have you considered a FHA loan? Down payment is 3.5%.

@Aaron Jannetti - In this environment you can consider putting additional cash down to cashflow; or shift your focus to value-add opportunities where you are increasing rent through cash renovations.  

@Dave Kush - Two separate parcels with shared driveways are uncommon but possible.  Sometimes these situations come down to road frontage; meaning how much feet of the public road borders both parcels when subdivided.  I don't have any specific recommendations, but you would certainly want to reach out to a civil engineer to review feasibility.

@Scott Rovner - Is your tenant paying near market rent?  If so, selling with the tenant in place will be less of an issue.  Buyers that are looking for value-add plays may be discouraged; but could encourage some buyers that don't want to deal with leasing a unit up.  I would speak with a few agents in your area and get their take; in this situation you should get the best advice from local market experts.

@Patrick William - This problem is typical, prior to agreement make sure you have a group of professionals (engineer, atty, etc) that you trust and work with regularly to analyze the feasibility and give you feedback.  If you don't have anyone you feel is trustworthy, you can utilize NDAs.  Certainly would recommend to include all approval contingencies needed to get a shovel in the ground.  You can lose a lot of money if you are on the hook to close on a project that is not fully approved.

just a disclaimer that a zoning variance is not an easy lift