All Forum Posts by: Sundar Krish

Thanks Vic L. and Darryl Dahlen

Vic - yes I am talking about gold jewels, not gold bars.

But the more general question is ( forgive my ignorance about the gold world), isn't there a standard, (semi-)universal, legitimate appraisal certificate that can be obtained and used to show to these banks. Gold being one of the earliest currencies in the human civilization, it is funny that there are no standardizations yet ;)

BTW I just got a reply from my lender, and they said that the gold has to be essentially liquidated to cash before making it count. That's quite a bummer, may be other lenders have different policies, but not sure.

Thanks Scott and Steve.
Scott, the listing agents' reply is somewhere along the lines of 'just trust me' and that's why I want to know if there is a way to put it on paper.

Steve, this is a short sale ( Nation Star - 1st /BOA - 2nd).

Hi,
I am a buyer/investor. The listing agent at one of the homes I found by myself and intend to buy is offering me 1% cash back from his total 6% commission, if I do a dual with him. It sounds like a win-win situation,
1. Is there a way to get a written statement for this (any CAR forms) instead of just relying on this at a verbal level. I do not know this realtor before, nor I do have/ intend to sign any sort of buyer/broker agreement with him that extends beyond the domain of this particular home.
2. Also I want this to be fully legal and fully disclosed on my HUD and be used towards my downpayment/closing costs. I am aware that some lenders do not approve his sort of cash back at HUD, but is there something else I need to be aware of and watch out for.
Thanks in advance for your valuable advice.

Hi, I am trying to buy my 5th home (existing 1 - primary, 3 other investment). I am aware that Fannie Mae has reserve requirements for home 5- 10 and in my case I have to show six months of reserve for all 2nd -5th homes.

My question is
1. Would I be able to count GOLD assets that I have towards this reserve.
2. If yes, what sort of appraisal documentation / certificate are preferred / acceptable.

3. Furthermore, Can I also count my GOLD assets towards establishing the capability for downpayment itself, the idea being that I can liquidate the gold and use it for downpayment just before closing ( and after loan approval from the underwriter).

Of course to keep the process simple, I can start off with liquidating the gold even before the loan application process, but if the loan or the house sale falls through for some reason, I would have wasted enough money on the gold liquidation and ideally I want to liquidate it only as late as possible.

I know each lender might have different policies surrounding this, I just want to get an idea of what is the normal practice. I have not got a response yet from my lender, this is probably something that they would rather answer once I go through the loan process and the file is before an underwriter, but that is a bit too late for me.

Thanks Dion

FYI I just went with aimloan.com, I tried calling a few others but their rates weren't that good. One good thing about aim loan is what you see on their website for rates is what you exactly get

Thanks AG, but since you are in CA, can you tell me where you found your lowest rates. I will probably use those lenders as my starting point.

What are the lenders that are offering the best rates for fannie mae home path in California? I see the list of the lenders from the homeopath.com site and I called a few. It seems like the big ones like wells fargo are not offering good rates on homepath, but smaller ones (like aimloan.com) for example are offering better rates. Before I end up calling them one by one, if anybody has done any research to find the best lender, please let me know

I am trying to rent it out and hold it for some years. In that time, hopefully the HOA issue for the community can get resolved, but it is bound to bring down the property values of all the homes in the community in the near future to below market rates. I am holding off this transaction for this reason alone.

Thanks again Jon, yeah the first rental home is a big issue, but it is a complex decision for me to sell it. As of now, it is appreciating back again from lows, rents increasing and a good portion of my PITI actually goes to P, making the rent almost break even with the ITI, so I am keeping it for now and see where it goes!
rent does not factor in reservers - not so good news for me , but makes sense I guess. BY definition reserve is for handling worst case scenario where you don't get rental income and still need to manage and pay PITI.

In your DTI calc, one thing I have heard earlier is that they don't account for rental on the new property, but based on my recent discussions with my mortgage agent, it seems like they do take in the estimated rental.

So the options for me are
1. Invest 3rd and 4th rental at around 250K - 350 K each in bay area and then stop. There is more probability for capital appreciation, but less cash positiveness.
or 2. Invest 3,4 (in las vegas or sacremento) and onwards buying houses around 80K. This is more probability for cash positiveness and less for capital appreciation , but I guess the 24K reserve requirement from my first rental will definitely come in the way here ( unless I get rid of it). Also it sounds like it is a little bit more complex to get 5+ loans anyways, and also more small properties translate to more management / rental issues and generally more effort from my side.
So I am basically leaning towards option 1. Thanks for helping me through the decision and let me know if your thoughts if any.

Thanks for the great response Jon.
1. This is my understanding, please correct me if i am wrong.
if rental on tax return > 2 yrs, then
needed reserve for that property = PITIA - 0.75 x rent x number of months ( 6 or 2 as the case may be)
otherwise
reserve = entire PITIA x number of months (cannot deduce rent)

The reason I am asking is because right now I have one owner occupied and one rental for more than three years now; the PITIA on the rental is a lot ( about 4K) and the rent is around 2.7K. For the next two rental properties that I would buy (which will be lower end properties), apart from showing 6 months PITIA on the property that I am buying, I am only required to show 2 months reserve on my first existing rental (manageable) but once I move into 5- 10 area, seems like I have to show 6 months reserve on my existing first giant rental. And this will definitely become a problem if the rental income I get on my giant first rental is not considered to offset PITIA for reserve calculations.