All Forum Posts by: Natalie C.

My husband is a veteran and we've previously used a VA loan, but not for a few years.

Looking to use a VA loan to purchase a small multifamily property (2-4 unit). We would reside in one of the units. From what I can find online, whether or not the lender will allow us to count future rent from the other units toward the loan amount depends on the specific lender.

Question: anyone have advice on getting pre-approved with a lender that will be more likely consider future rent payments toward the loan amount (ie the loan amount will be greater than just our w2 jobs would provide)?

Located in greater SF bay area.

Thanks!

@Minna Reid Perfect, that's good to know. Thank you so much for taking the time to answer and for your knowledge!

Hey everyone! Still a newbie and would love some input. I might be totally off base for even exploring this option, so would love some input.

Looking at a SFH in my township in New Jersey. Property was last sold in 2001 for $161k. Currently assessed value is $240k. Has been in pre-foreclosure for 1.5 yr. Looks like the amount owed on the property is over $700k. How is this a thing? Did the owners take out a second lien on the property? Is it even possible to pursue a short sale on this property or am I grasping at straws?

Not sure if it is owner occupied - I've seen an out of state license plate parked in the driveway and the mailing address is a PO box in a nearby town.

Thanks everyone!

Natalie

@Nicholas Aiola Hi! I have a few questions for you regarding a single family house that my husband and I lived in from about 2012-2016. We moved out 1.5 yr ago and have been renting it since. House has appreciated about 200k since we bought it, so looking to use capital gains exclusion (we are military so get an extra 10 years tacked on to the 2 out of 5 yr rule).

1. We had roommates living in the other 2 rooms of our house. From what I gather, this does not somehow reduce our capital gains exclusion, as it would if this were a multiplex, correct?

2. Taking depreciation will not affect the capital gains exclusion that we'll take when we sell, correct? I assume that the government will assume that we're taking it as with a normal rental property.

3. My husband's active duty contract will be up in about 3 years. When it is up, will the 10 year extension that we get for being military then be void?

Thank you so much! This house appreciated quite a bit so just want to make sure that we don't mess anything up with the capital gains exclusion!

Natalie

Hello!

I may be missing something here, so please bear with me.

When plugging in numbers, in what category do you typically add the leasing fee (e.g. first month's rent) and renewal fees (e.g. half month's rent)? These are obviously significant costs that shouldn't be forgotten.

Thank you!

Natalie

I am also pretty new but maybe I can help you understand this. You find a property that you can buy for 50k, put 20k into it, then have an ARV of 100k. When you refinance the property, the bank may give you, say, 70% of the ARV (70k in this case). I don't think that this 70% is set in stone, nor do you have to take the full amount offered in the refinance. So now you have 70k in the deal (50k purchase + 20k rehab), but you have gotten all of your money back through the refinance, and now have the refinance / new loan attached to the property. If you use a private or hard money lender, they will have a set of terms that may vary depending on the lender and borrower (interest rate, points, and schedule of payment). You can use the refinance to pay off the lender. Again, I'm new at this game, too, so hopefully didn't feed you any false information :) Happy studying!

I just got pre-approved by Shawn Huss at Chemical Bank. So far he has been very helpful. Good luck!

We don't have current plans to sell. Our tenants want to stay in the house for a few years and are extremely trustworthy, so we figure we'll let them continue to pay down our loan and let to property continue to cash flow for the time being.

Your explanation makes a lot of sense, thank you so much for taking to time to break down the numbers for me.

We don't yet have our own CPA. We recently moved and I used a local one last year for tax returns and he missed a bunch of things, so I've developed an attitude that 'I am my only advocate' a little more...

@Daniel Ortiz @Ashish Acharya @Nicholas Aiola Thank you for the responses!

Just to be super clear - we lived in the property from about 2012-2016. Rented the spare rooms out to buddies while we were still living there. Have not yet reclaimed depreciation (mostly because we were not knowledgeable about it!). Currently the house is rented out on a formal lease to tenants.

We are military and therefore, as far as I understand, can extend the length of time that we can claim capital gains exclusion.

Now that we are no longer living in the property. I'll chat with a CPA soon, but it sounds like depreciation can never be claimed on the property if we want to exclude capital gains (property has gone from ~190k to ~360k), correct? Or could we just not recapture it during the time we were living on the property? Or are all of these questions just for a CPA that we need to hire??

Thank you all!!

Hello!

I found a real estate agent and am on the hunt for our second investment property. Yay!

I am starting to look for local lenders (hoping to use a conventional loan) and would like to get pre-approved for a loan. If I understand correctly, loan pre-approvals last for 60 days. I know that in this market, digging must be done to find a cash flowing property, so it could take months to find one. But I want to be ready to act quickly when I do find the right property.

Even if you understand that you may not find the right property for many months, do you still get pre-approved for a loan? And then once those 60 days are up, then what? Get re-pre-approved? I know that your credit doesn't take a huge hit when the bank checks your credit, but I would imagine that repeat checks every 60 days are not ideal.

How should I manage this issue?