All Forum Posts by: Tiffany Johnson

@Tiffany Johnson- thanks - 1) if using a FHA loan to buy a multi family property to live in - ideally you will need to refinance out of the FHA loan to a conventional loan if you want to be able to use a FHA loan again for the 2nd property .....the issue with this is that you will likely need a large amount of equity ( 25% + ) in order to refinance a MF rental property ( which is unlikely ) .....you might consider buying a 1 unit / use a conventional loan with 3% down - learn the ropes - then buy your 2nd prop as a MF using the FHA strategy ...if you do buy usign FHA loan and then cant refinance it you will need to use a conventional loan for the 2nd proerpty ( which will require a 20% + down payment )

My honest advice is to put as much effort and focus on getting that first deal done.  You will learn a ton going through your first one and that could have a huge impact on what you want to do going forward.

Keep it simple and focused.. find a good deal and buy it.

@Christian M. Conroy

this is a great question, and you did a lot of actual homework before asking it, so kudos to you for that.  and, you got some good answers.

one of the ideas behind house hacking is not just to build equity, but also to defray your living expenses.  think about it: if you can put 3.5% down AND figure out a way to defray your house payment with some kind of house hack arrangement, you keep more cash in your pocket for other things: savings, other investments, whatever you want.  so there's tremendous value there.  it's not reasonable to expect the kind of appreciation from the past few years to continue, but the lower down payment gives you more flexibility no matter what you decide to do.  it could also let you force appreciation via a rehab or an addition or something like that.

there are a lot of great REIA meetings in the DMV - go to as many as you can and keep learning.