All Forum Posts by: Terence Eng

I just closed on a HELOC on my primary residence and during the application process they asked me what I was going to use the HELOC for. I simply said it was for Investment property down payment and rehab / fixing costs. They didn't question it and closed a few days after they received the appraisal.

Question to you guys on this post, did you have any issues getting approved for the HELOC (on primary residence) to be used on a purchase of another property?

I am in application process with a lender (Affinity FCU) and when I mentioned I wanted to use the HELOC on my primary residence for down payment or purchase of another property as an investment, the underwriter hesitated and mentioned I may not be approved for this type of use.

I've initially called the lender to make sure this use was ok, but now the underwriter I spoke to makes me think otherwise.

thanks in advance!

Sometimes the tax listed on listings may not be accurate also, I've seen some differences between them (ie zillow, redfin, realtor.com..etc).  You can view the properties actual tax for a given year via this site for Hudson County.  http://www.hudsoncountynj.org/search-tax-records/

@Jeremy Basiger

have you ever figured out if you could pull off that FHA loan with your father and after a year at refinance time deed it to you?

I'm considering a similar situation with my mother applying for a FHA203k loan on a 3-4 unit, and I be the non-occupant co borrower, she will live in one of the units to house hack.  After the 1 year, we want to refinance out of the FHA203k loan to a conventional and I take ownership of the property.   I think we'll both be on the deed, and I would have her quit claim the deed solely to me after that 1 year.

thank you. 

I use redfin.com with their multi-family filter and then compare what comes up to Zillow/realtor/trulia to compare the data that comes up for each property.  I've notice sometimes one will have more info than the other or missing info from one site to the next.  

@Pearly Tan, thanks for the advice. We have contemplated the SFH realm too but are still exploring what would get us bang for the (limited) buck we have. Preliminary analysis on the numbers we would not gain enough rent with a SFH to offset the taxes to be cash flow positive, which is why MFH seems like a better option currently. But I do agree with you, the first one is a learning process and gain immense knowledge of the whole picture.

@Tom Ott and @George Blower, thank you for the welcome!

@Marky Suazo, we're still deciding what is the best route to take whether house hack or just renting out entirety.  I do know some towns have rent control levied on 3+ unit apartments however if we owner occupy a unit in the building the rent control laws may not apply and could adjust to market rate rent upon lease expiring.  

We could do that and house hack it, and my current condo that I own we would rent that out.

@Marky Suazo, we've been looking for a few months now and noticed that 3-4 family homes are hard to come by as it seems inventory are majority duplexes however that is what we're looking for as the numbers work out better with the extra unit.  

Coincidentally we just did a drive around Bayonne last friday and the neighborhoods are really nice...growing up in NJ and living in JC for a while I always heard Bayonne wasn't the greatest area but actually driving around there I now have a completely different mindset about it!  The numbers are tough as their taxes are also pretty high which takes away some of the monthly cash flow, but i feel its a good place to look if a deal comes up.

As for a realtor, reach out to @Diana Tian. She is local Realtor and a Investor herself!

@Trevor Ewen,

thanks Trevor it does seem tough but determined to get my first deal closer to home before diving in out of state.  I appreciate it and will reach out for some OOS investing!

@Sunny Burns, congrats on the 4 family! Rose and I just got to get into the first property and get the snowball rolling just like you and SunMarie! hahah