All Forum Posts by: Matthew Brill

In terms of ability to offset your mortgage, the SFR house hack is the best way to go. Renting out by the room as a STR rental should boost those returns but with more work and potential headaches on your part. If I were you I would put down as low a downpayment as possible (as long as you can still make the monthly payments), and use the leftover cash for reserves and source for your next investment. I would also keep in the back of your mind your strategy for when you move out; will the property be cash flow positive as a traditional long term rental? will you still need to rent out by the room?

100%. This would be the ideal house hack strategy!

If you have the rental income on your tax returns for two years then the lender should count that towards your income (including backing out the loss from depreciation). For the basement unit that you will be vacating, you'll have to tell the lender what market rent would be (or better yet a signed lease) and they will include 75% of that amount towards your income. Plus, if your are buying a 4-plex, they will include 75% of the market rents for the 3 other units and apply that towards your income. Generally, this should make your DTI go down as long as the new purchase would cash flow with 100% occupancy since expense ratios are usually larger than 75%. You should check out the FHA sustainability rule.

One of the best first purchases to make in real estate is a house hack. Will get you some experience buying and landlording as well as save you on monthly living expenses.

There are a bunch of meetups across south florida depending on how far you are willing to drive (some are even on zoom now). 

I think the best way to break into real estate is house hacking.

Feel free to reach out.

You have to have the intent to live in the property for 1 year if it is an owner occupant plan.  What qualifies as intent and circumstances to fulfill that intent seems to me to be up for interpretation. It is mortgage fraud if you don’t but I’m not sure how the bank would prove it. 

You can house hack with a USDA loan. It is 100% LTV but there are location and income stipulations. It also can only be a SFR.

If you are both signing on the loan together then they will run both of your credit and use whoever's is better (but you should start building up your credit). I would try to find a lender to do a FHA or, better yet, a low down payment conventional loan. You will definitely want to do some research on the potential rents to make sure it is cash flow positive when you move out at the least.

Unfortunately the 203k loan cannot be used for new construction. But still worthwhile to find a duplex that needs a lot of work and use the 203k loan for that. 

I agree with what @Billy Daniel said. If you can refinance your current mortgage to conventional loan and still cash flow renting it out with the new payment I would do that. If not, you are probably best to sell and use the equity elsewhere. Either way, you should definitely get another VA loan when you move and put as little down as possible and not have the PMI still. You have the equity from your current house to either invest or use to capture some forced appreciation on your new house.

I think you should be ok from a job perspective. You have to show a bank recent paystubs and 2 years W2s. The furlough likely won’t be reflected in that. IF an issue does arise you should be able to get a letter of employment from your employer to provide the supporting documents you need. A lender would be able to give you more information (you don’t have to reveal your husband was furloughed, just give them the documentation they ask for when getting preapproved and they will ask whatever questions they have from there). 

And definitely go for a house hack!

My first move to get started in real estate would be a house hack. Definitely worth learning about.