All Forum Posts by: Chris S.

Hey Christopher, congrats on getting the score up!  My advice is that, I would buy a house that you plan to rent out, stay there for a year, move to another house and rent the old house out.  You can do this a lot easier, with a lower credit score requirement, a lower interest rate and less money down vs going for an investment loan with a higher credit score requirement, a higher interest rate, and 25%-30% down.. Good luck!

hey John!  Thanks for the info.. I spoke to my wife and there's actually no lease at all (it was verbal and I guess they've been there for 25 and 8 years, not 12 and 7), so would your advice be the same?

We're buying a 2 unit that we're going to completely rehab and the tenants in the 2 unit are month to month.  We're in Pennsylvania.  Do you think it will be an issue to get them out after we close (a short closing is probably part of the reason we won the bid), or should we push them to get the renters out before we close and risk losing the deal?

I guess the current tenants have been in there for 7 and 12 years on a verbal month to month basis..

Are there any unforeseen issues you can see?  Or some tips you can think of if you were in this situation?  Thanks for any advice!!

I would definitely go for the LLC option, but the type of financing changes in that case. I can get up to 10 loans with a 30 year fixed, vs if I go w/ an LLC it would have to be a 5 year fixed and 25 year term. That's a big disadvantage in my opinion considering we're at historically low interest rates.

With the loan types in mind, if nothing would happen, we'd be in a better position to keep the $2 million dollar umbrella insurance and not put the properties in an LLC.

Any advice on this aspect?

Fyi, we decided to give them a shot.. 

We held the house for him, we didn't respond to other requests and when it came time to pay, the guy said he wanted to drive the deposit down instead of just venmo'ing it (5 hours both ways) and tried to make us feel like we were inconveniencing him.  My wife got a bad vibe from him and just told him to forget it.  We rented it last night to a great couple w/ 700+ credit each..

I think we're going to make it a point to not do it sight unseen moving forward..

Hello, I have 7 rental properties right now (I'm not extremely seasoned in finding renters) and on one of them we have an applicant from another state that wants to rent the house unseen (just from pics on Zillow).  The husband would be coming here for a contract position and the wife would be getting a job here (that's not set up yet).  

Their current income meets our requirements, but since it's a contract position that ends in 4-6 months, I'm wondering if they'll be able to pay.  They said they would pay 7 months up front (of a 7 month contract), plus 2 months security, to make it easy.

The whole thing kind of seems like the perfect storm for an internet scam / bad story.. ha.  I'm not sure how I could lose money here, but I figured I'd run it by you guys quick..  Thanks!

A little harsh @Thomas S.  So everyone that suggested ideas for ways to work with them is a hobby landlord?  I've been doing this for 10 years, have 8 properties and I've never had experience with US Military.  I'm sure you haven't either since you're from Canada, ey?  I didn't realize they had a housing allowance.  She forgot to include it in their monthly income, so they're way over the limit of what we were looking for.  Sometimes it helps to ask.. That's what this forum is for.

For everyone else, they're our new tenants as of last night.  A great couple.  Thanks for all the help!

Deanna, I didn't even think about a co-signer.  I'm going to give that a shot and ask about his military status.  Great ideas..

Christine, I never heard 2.5x, but that's encouraging (I wonder if it has anything to do with the California market?)..

Thanks to everyone else too.  Great advice..

hello, I was hoping to get your advice on this.  

We have a rental that we put out for $1450/month.  We have an interested couple that makes $3600/month combined.  The guy is a Marine for 7 years (728 credit score), the girl works at Starbucks for 3 years (718 credit score) and has a newborn due in August.  

Would you make an exception to the income more than 3 times monthly rent rule here because of the credit scores?  Any advice would be great!  Thanks..

Hello, I have been looking around and I just want to make sure that I'm not missing anything before I pull the trigger.  Is there any way to get a commercial investment loan at a fixed rate for the entire 30 years (after using up the 5 personal loans).  Or am I stuck w/ the 5/25?

I'm on my 6th mortgage and I just want to make sure that there's no way around the 5/25 ARM.

Also, if I am stuck w/ the 5/25, what do you think the safest % to put down is?  (I'm willing to do up to 50%, but not sure if that's necessary)

Thanks!  Chris