All Forum Posts by: Paul S.

Hi Brian and welcome to BP. I'm new to the site as well and in a few short days have found it very helpful. I'm sure you will find the same. I also attended VT. Go Hokies!!

Thanks everyone for your very helpful comments! First let me give a bit of clarification. I am not trying to refinance my properties as I just recently purchased them. I just closed on one property this March and another this April so schedule E's do not exist yet. They are both rented and cash flowing. I also have my personal house. The 3 of these count against my monthly debt in the debt to income ratio. So let's say I want to go buy another house tomorrow. I am being told by banks that I cannot count the rental income from the two I just purchased and as a result my DTI is close to maxed out.

After reading all of your input, I went back and read the Fannie Mae guidelines in section B3-3.1-08 on counting rental income/loss in DTI. It says that if a schedule E does not exist then current leases can be used but only 75% of the rental income can be used toward DTI. So this sounds pretty positive and not very limiting.

Maybe my issue is in specific bank rules and not Fannie Mae? TD bank told me directly that they would not let me count the income for two years. My wife called another bank today and they said they require one year. This is what I mean by seasoning (if that is the right term). If I have to wait one or two years before buying each property then my real estate plan is going to hit a brick wall.

Is it possible that banks add additional restrictions on top of Fannie Mae? Are some banks more flexible than others? Or am I just talking to the wrong (unqualified or confused) people at the banks I am talking to?

Thanks in advance for any additional feedback.

Has anyone had any experience with getting around the seasoning requirements for rental income? With the properties we own, all of which are financed, we have reached our max debt to income ratio. From what we understand, the banks will not allow us to count the rental income until we have owned the properties for 2 years each (shown by tax returns). All of our houses are cash flowing and we want to work with a bank who will qualify us based on our experience, not these arbitrary rules. At this point, we are limited not by the number of houses, but by the amount of debt we can carry. Any thoughts would be appreciated. We are in the Charlotte NC market so if anyone has any local knowledge and/or experience, it would be much appreciated.

We have actually bought a house to flip in Florida with a train track in the back yard and it was a problem on resale. This was a desirable neighborhood in general but quite tough pulling comps because 2 blocks over is very different than a train in the yard. Very few buyers will be willing to live with all the noise and when they let the train horn loose, it is LOUD!!! They always say, location, location, location. We won't make that mistake again.

Hello from Charlotte! My wife and I started our investing journey about 5 years ago and amazingly have just stumbled onto this site. I can only imagine how much easier things would have been if we had known this site existed when we were getting started. We felt for the longest time like we were on an island with real estate investing but it's great to know there are so many others.

To date, we've been focusing on buying rentals. This has gone well but we have quickly realized there is only so much you can do operating on work income. We're hoping to boost our capital by getting into flips and maybe wholesales. Almost every rental we've purchased has needed repairs so we are hoping it is a natural next step into flips.

Time to get busy on marketing and networking. We are looking forward to being part of the Bigger Pockets community and meeting like-minded people.