All Forum Posts by: Kimberly Elson

Wohoo! Congrats! Awesome stuff. 

@Jeff Wydra. There is REIA in the Orlando area, and @Bernadeau C. co-hosts a monthly meetup, welcome to the area!

Don’t do a 4 year lease. That only benefits the tenant and locks you in limiting future options. I’m local, and can’t think of many areas in the central FL area that would be so difficult to sell in that you had to accept a rent amount significantly under market for 4 years to be able to sell.

If you want to use the profit from the potential sale to invest in something else, raise the rent to market rent and list your property for sale- being $800/ month under market is going to hurt the sales price when you try to sell (and even worse the longer that lease is) since the buyer has to honor the lease.

Basically, you are giving the tenant $800/ month right now. Although that is very nice of you, think of the reasons you started investing, and if they include having more money for you and your family, then charge market rent and then decide whether selling or continuing to rent is in your best interest. 

Bought my first investment property in 2017. I had a paid off truck, took out a title loan (at the time 3.9%) which covered the 15% down payment and closing costs (around $20k). Worked every minute of overtime I could from the moment I started house shopping until closing to have enough for repairs that were needed. Obviously not ideal since I had no reserves (and I have since gotten smarter), but it ended up working out great for a first property. 

You can actually have more than one FHA loan. If you have one and you have to relocate more than 100 miles for a job opportunity you could qualify for another FHA without having to pay off the first.

However, FHA is not always the best or cheapest option, so you should discuss with your loan officer or mortgage broker to find the best fit for what you're trying to do. There is no rule regarding decreasing units, in theory you could go from a SFH to a quadplex. But, with the current market I think it would be very difficult to make a quad work with the FHA self sufficiency test.

Congrats!!

Yes, in most states when you are living in the property with 4 units or less you can select tenants such as female only/ male only etc. Check out equalhousing.org for details. 

Check your local laws, but in most places it is required that the new owner honor the lease regardless of who you sell to. Having a written lease as opposed to a verbal agreement will be helpful in this case. It may limit who is interested in your property, but your tenants would be ‘safe’. 

What’s your credit like? Can you get a zero percent interest credit card and get it paid off in the time period before the interest goes up? This is risky if you aren’t disciplined in the payoff, but can be a good option to finance without interest.
Shop around with other roofers. Down here in FL there are roofers that finance with a lower interest rate. Or, check with your local bank/ credit union for a secured or personal loan which should be lower than 15% at least. 

 I’m looking for similar work in the Orlando area- can you recommend a good contractor?