All Forum Posts by: Mark Smith

Hello all,

Just wondering if anyone has ever noticed an increase in difficulty when it comes to finding tenants for a property with no off-street parking, no washer/dryer hookup, or the combination of both.  I'm looking at a property with no off-street parking, but there is on-street parking available in front of the house.  There is also no washer/dryer hookup, but there is a laundromat literally 200 feet from the front door.  Thank you for your thoughts!

Hi @Joshua Tobin, welcome to the BP community.  While I'm not opposed to your idea, the popular meeting in the area is the Action Investors Network monthly meeting at the Century House in Latham.  Your first meeting is free if you are interested in checking that out.

The last time I applied for a mortgage they actually took 70% of my rental income.  @Rashad Colton if you do not have any monthly debt payments such as credit cards, the only other way to make your DTI look better would be to increase your income as @Charles Kennedy stated.

@Michael Osborne forgive me if I misunderstood or if you already spoke to this, but above you mentioned using a personal loan for the down payment while getting a mortgage.  So if you wanted a $100k property, you would walk into a bank asking for a $20k personal loan and an $80k mortgage (not considering closing costs here)?  Can you explain how you can do this?  I feel like if I tried this the bank would laugh at me since I'd have no skin in the game; they would essentially be providing 100% financing.

Thank you @Kim Meredith Hampton and @Jim C.! Looks like if I went with internet-go.com it would be $30 for the unit and $10/month. I shut the furnace off for about 4 months out of the year, so if the Nest saved me $15/month during the other 8 months it would make paying for the internet service worth it. I pay almost $300/month for gas in my 2,000 square foot two family in the really cold months, talk about a hit to cash flow! I'm hoping this could help.

So I've always loved the idea of the Nest thermostat since I pay for gas in my two family, and now that they have come out with this new cheaper "Thermostat E" I'm even more interested. I know I need to check to see if it is even compatible with my heating system, but my house also doesn't have wifi. I really only want wifi for the sake of being able to connect to and control the thermostat, I don't even want my tenants to know the wifi is there since the house doesn't already have it. Does anyone have any suggestions on an inexpensive way to do this? I don't even know what to expect to pay for wifi!

@Rickey Wiley 730 is a very respectable credit score, you should be proud of that. It's tough to find the low down payment options, I've definitely been in the same boat as you. I purchased my first two family using an FHA, now I'm trying to get my second by going conventional 15% down owner occupied. All of the really low down payment products are really geared toward the first time home buyer, but I'm sure I'm telling you things you already know. The only other thing I can think of is you can try to find a partner. Sure, you'll be splitting the cash flow most likely. But if you only have $X right now then at least you could put it to work earning you a return. Obviously the tough part here is finding a partner at all, let alone finding the right partner.

I believe to do this you would have to refi out of the FHA, which can be difficult as I would imagine you don't have 15% or 20% equity to be able to refi into a conventional after only one year unless you do a lot of work to force appreciation. You can only hold one FHA at a time, and yes they typically have a 1 year owner occupancy clause.

As far as verifying that it is your primary residence, I have never heard of anyone coming and knocking on the door to see if you are really living there. However, the lender will most likely require you to submit a letter explaining why you are moving (i.e. the new property is closer to my job, closer to my aging relatives who are relying on my help, etc.), and since you already have an FHA I'm sure you signed the form at closing stating it would be your primary residence. If you purchase using an FHA without the intent of living in the property, just keep mortgage fraud in the back of your mind.

I would say there are two paths here: Save up the 20% for your next down payment, or pour a bunch of cash into your current property if there is a chance you can force enough appreciation so that you can reach that 80% LTV threshold, refinance into conventional, and reopen the FHA option.

Hello all,

I own a two family which I pay the heat for; there is only one furnace.  The furnace is relatively old, so I've always toyed with the idea of separating the heat when that furnace kicks the bucket.  I'm wondering if anyone here has gone through this process before, and what I might be getting myself into.  Does the duct work throughout the house need to be completely redone?  Obviously there would be the expense of two furnaces plus an extra meter and some piping.  I'm wondering if the whole job can be done for under $10,000.  I pay upwards of $300/month for gas in the winter, so it's a solid hit to the cash flow.  I probably average $230/month for the whole year, so if I were to get rid of this expense I would make my money back within 4 years.  There would even be room to drop rent slightly.  The house makes good money as it is, I'm just trying to plan ahead.  

The two water tanks are also on the same gas meter as the furnace.  If I had two furnaces installed on two separate gas meters, would it be possible to link each water heater to the furnace that services the same unit?  Sorry, that might be a stupid question, I'm clearly not an HVAC pro!  What are your thoughts?

Thank you!

@John Nachtigall I have $150 taken out of my check and put into my savings account each week.  While I still have easy access to the money obviously, it at least helps me save.  I'll check out Wealthfront, it sounds like a great idea.

@Josh C. I paid it off today :)  And yes, I am sure about the 15%.  I have gone through the preapproval process.  It would be owner occupied; if it were for investment it would be in the 20%-25% range for sure.

@Bryan Jean, done!  And I believe credit utilization as far as your credit score is concerned only looks at your total available credit and how much of it you have used, it doesn't look at individual credit lines.  When looking at my overall credit utilization I am at about 11%.  I just double checked, and CreditKarma says credit utilization = total balances/total limits.