All Forum Posts by: Lee G.

Anyone ever buy a property with a 203(k) loan? Found a duplex I'd love to buy and add a couple units to and the 203(k) seems to be the right way to go... Any advice or details you can provide about the program would be awesome.

I was in your boat, Mack but was patient, made a couple offers and one finally came through. The first step to all of this is being very specific in what you are looking for otherwise you will get lost. Once you've done that, finding that exact property you are looking for is much easier.

The specific property I was looking for was 4 plex near a major university that I could live in. It took a bit to find but it finally came up and all things are gravy. Best part about it is that I used an FHA loan to buy it so I didn't have to blow through a ton of cash to buy the property. So if you are willing to live in the property, that's one way to go. Otherwise, Brian and the others have great ideas.

Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.

I finally pulled the trigger on a nice 4-plex. Things have been running great and I'm really enjoying all aspects of investing and running this building. I really would like to do more deals and have found some good deals that fall into into my model (buy and hold, 2-4 unit student housing) but I know I won't get approved for the financing on them. I was laid off in October but have pulled together a bunch of consulting clients and have the income from the building so there's money there but not the w-2 income that the banks like. I've talked to a couple brokers and they say they have some lenders who will do deals with me if I have 40% down but that doesn't make a whole lot of financial sense because my returns are significantly diminished.

So my question is what would you do in my position? I see a couple options but perhaps there are some ways you can point out -

1) Suck it up and get a "real" job with w-2 income again
2) Put the ambition away for awhile until I have more cash on hand
3) Pound away looking for seller financing deals
4) ???

Thanks for any advice.

It depends on what you are willing to do.

My first property was a 4 plex that I bought with an FHA loan. I lived in one of the units and rented the others out. I had just enough into it so I could live for free and have a couple bucks of cash flow on top. If you are willing to do something like this, there are tons of properties you can get with that $25k.