All Forum Posts by: Derek Brickley

Two sides of course, as a home buyer you need to do what's best for you and if anyone (us included) can't give you that then we would be the first to tell you.  Keep that in mind.

The second side, is a few dollars lower in payment really the absolute best thing for you? I don't actually have an answer and it's not rhetorical.  How valuable is the first lender as a resource and network connection for you? How trustworthy are they and are you confident in their ability to help? Reputation matters for your offers in the future and can be the difference between getting a deal and losing it, will either of these lenders help more with that over the other?

Typically my analogy is something like: if you're in a happy relationship, you're not going to go looking and see if the grass is greener on the other side... so for you what is it you're really looking for?

Hey Anne!  Yep for one especially in the early stages a hard credit pull would not be useful, just have them do soft checks for the time being and opt out of credit solicitation: www.optoutprescreen.com 

I could be biased... that said typically working with one lender than can help regardless of where you're looking and having a relationship with that will provide the easiest and most cost effective route long term.  Just as you will be out of state, as long as the lender has knowledge of at minimum the state level where you're looking that will be perfect.  Generally a "local" lender may just have more restrictions and even though they know the area, that's really what a great realtor and PM should be able to inform you on.

Hey Dallas! Note that FHA can be a great option at 3.5% down but don't rule out the 5% down conventional option either. Both have pros and cons (my first househack in 2023 was with the conventional one). It's so hard to say generally what problems might come up, but the first that comes to my mind is work history - do you have 6 months on the job and a 2 year work/school history? FHA will be looking for that. FHA does have the benefit of max seller concessions being 6% so if your realtor can negotiate for that it can really minimize your cash outlay. Conventional at 5% down would cap you at 3% concessions, but generally is more lenient with employment history and property condition. Note too with conventional - are you renting currently? That will play a factor for qualifying.

Hey Francisco!  We do indeed, I went to college in Appleton and minored in Spanish plus have a few other Spanish speaking colleagues here!

Hey Sushil!

I second what everyone else has mentioned... There are times when a blanket/portfolio might be more useful but this probably wouldn't be that case here. Once you have a large number of properties (maybe 10ish?) you may find it beneficial to avoid paying lender fees over and over again, on 3 properties though if you go with a lender that doesn't charge a ton of junk fees then you'd save doing it separately. Sometimes too portfolios allow you to include lower valued properties that might not be eligible for regular DSCR lending. Every deal/portfolio is different though so feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

Depending on your loan amount, doing a cash-out refi to get $35k probably isn't worth it.  It would depend the full situation, but I'd pursue the equity line before I touched my first at 3.625%.  That way you have it available but aren't paying on it right away.  If credit is the issue, talk with your lender to run a credit simulation to see what actionable steps you can take to improve it.  

Hey Jaime!  My first househack wasn't in Logan, but we've helped buyers in a few of the counties nearby.  Feel free to reach out if you have any specific questions, as an investor or a lender happy to share any advice I can!

Hey Rich! To keep it short and sweet, depending on your deal you should have plenty of options.  Even though no prepayment is possible, we are quoting a lot of 1, 2, or 3 year prepayments.  The difference would depending on your exact deal though, each of those are weighted differently.  Feel free to reach out though if it would be helpful to look for a sweet spot in those to see the tradeoff between prepayment penalties/terms!

^^ not a way to get around the net income for your rental, but as mentioned DTI restrictions are different from lender to lender so you might find more leeway looking into that.

Hey Luis, wish I had some advice but never seen that done successfully on a househack.  The problem is, airbnb income is not considered "stable" so for qualifying purposes there isn't a way to project that accurately if there isn't any previous rental history for the property.  For investment properties sometimes you can do this if there is a history or using Airdna but never for primary residence purchases.