All Forum Posts by: Michael B.

Any thoughts?  

Step 1: Get credit card with 0% apr for 18+months.  I have seen 3 years on one (if it is real)

Step 2: Pay mortgage for 18 months to 3 years (depending on card) up front, in one shot, using ChargeSmart.  There will be roughly a 3% fee to do so.

Step 3: Make sure mortgage is set up not to keep taking out payments that you made in advance, so as not to have a double payment. 

Step 4: When CC money is due (18 months to 3 years), take mortgage payments you would have made and pay off CC.  Avg mortgage is 4%.  Over any 0% apr longer than 9 months, you have made some money.  Even better, apply it to a student loan or something with higher interest.  Plus add mortgage you would have paid to savings account and earn a little extra.

Both my wife and I have excellent credit. We probably could each apply for 100k worth of credit and apply it to mortgages (multiple investment homes) or other things. 200k worth of money if we could get 3 years 0% APR paying only the one time 3% fee to ChargeSmart might be worth (12% savings over 3 years - 3% up front fee = 9% * 200,000 = 18k over 3 years). Worth even more for student loans or other higher interest loans.

Can this be done or is there a flaw in my proposal?

 I appreciate the advice.  I made my post too complicated.  I should have broken it up into multiple pieces and questions.

Not sure if this is legal.  I don't want to do anything illegal.  I am just proposing a hypothetical and am wondering what people think.

My parents own a house in Ohio that they paid 230k for.  They moved to Florida a couple of years ago and bought a new house.  The Ohio house is now rented out.  What if I bought the house for 300k.  My parents held the note as interest only.  When they die (God forbid, but it will happen one day), they leave the house to me as inheritance.  If I then sold the house, but it only sold for $250k, could I claim a $50k loss?  Change the numbers around for different outcomes.  Again, just an interesting, hypothetical question.

I am looking for some down payment seed money to expand my real estate rental property holdings.  I currently only have 2 rental properties (I have had a total of 5 over the last 12 years so I am small time, but somewhat experienced), but am looking to expand. Maybe buy four 30k-40k homes in next year.  So several questions.

1. I have two chase ccs.  One has a 27k credit line (which I have had for 10 years now) and 0 balance.  I rarely use it.  The other has a 30k credit line.  It is new.  I have 20k balance for businesses expenses (another business I have).  It is 0% apr for the next 5 months and then 9% or so kicks in.  I have the cash to pay it off, but would rather use those funds to help me buy some more rental property.  I am wondering what having a 20k balance on a 30k card plus a 0 balance on a 27k card does to my credit score.  It is otherwise excellent (runs from 750 to 800 on any given day).  I will need an excellent credit score because I am looking to get loans for some more investment properties and possibly apply for some more credit cards with 0% balance for 18+ months for some more seed money.  I have about 30k seed money available to me right now (not including money I have set aside for daily expenses) and would like to add another 30k in new credit card money.  I won't use the old line (and could close it if necessary) because it doesn't offer me 0% intro offers.  Closing my oldest account though would probably hurt my credit score.  I will be able to pay off the credit card money I borrow in 2 to 3 years with some extra money I have coming in (from a house sale), so carrying a balance is not a worry.

2. Which credit cards offer the best 18+ month 0% apr WITH A SIGNIFICANT CREDIT LIMIT? Getting a 5k credit limit with a discover card is a waste of time. I am looking for 15k minimum and 30k ideally. I already have two chase cards, so they are less desirable as I can't transfer a balance to them if i want to. The two discover cards I have had in my life have always been low limit. For some reason, citi always rejects me even though I have excellent credit. I don't want a card that starts with a low balance and then works its way up, as I am looking to do the 0% apr use of funds right away, while the offer has the longest staying power. Finally, I am looking for a card with the lowest monthly payback rate, so to keep my DTI as low as possible. Currently, my Chase is 1%, which is good.

3. Recommendations on easiest way to pull money from card to checking account.  Thus far i have buying things on my business card and putting the sales revenue into my checking account.  Works great with 0% apr, but takes time.  I can write credit check for cash, but am usually limited to 5k limit and have to pay 3%.  Can run it through paypal as business purchase with family member and pay 3%, but may be illegal/unethical.  Could even do paypal gift at 0% fee, but probably is definitely illegal/unethical.  I see some cards allow you to transfer money from card to checking account for lower fee (as low as 2%), but not sure if they give you much of a limit.  See below.

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/credit-cards/money-transfer/