All Forum Posts by: Tim Shin

 Andy if you can make it out to the meetup tonight put on by Charles Nguyen, you and your wife can meet my risk averse wife who is now investing with both feet in looking for 15 units this year. 

Pub Fiction in midtown @7

Hope to see you there. 

Hi Matt, send me a message and we can talk about it. 

 Welcome, Steve, let us know if you need anything! We're here to help and hopefully make each other some money. 

I saw this also! Do they offer an equivalently low mortgage for investors?

 Hi Brian, excited to see you come to Houston soon! Early welcome. I hear that Pearland is a great area.for rentals but near League City Deer Park is where it's at. @Lindsay Leavitt and others can tell you all about it. Rents are high, schools are good, and houses are cheap. You have access to renters from the downstream sector of oil and gas, port of Houston workers, some upstream, and retail workers. The Panama canal expansion is expected to produce job growth in Houston and I think Deer Park and League City will benefit. While oil is low, the downstream benefits. 

@Michael Boyd is a friend and associate and has a few rentals there also. He's got duplexes which indicate to me there may be good house hacks available. 

Are you looking to live in b class neighborhoods?

Maybe @Sharon Tzib wwill have some input too. 

 Congratulations Jordan! What are the numbers you purchased at and are looking at for expenses and rent?

@Syed Khan

I would recommend reading a book on the 203k called "Real Estate's Best Kept Secret". This will get you in the know and you'll know when your lender or other people don't know what you're doing which will cost you money and time and possibly the deal. 

 Hi Kyle, I've read this book. Well really I've listened to this book. I love @Brandon Turner's books and this is a good one. I think it's good and complementary to Hold by the Keller Williams people and Linda Mckissick. Brandon's book is great for getting you into a rental property mindset, how to go about finding deals, where to go and look for people to work with and deals, then how to succeed when you're there. I'm planning to utilize the strategies there and combine them with those found in Hold. In some ways Brandon's book is very specific and better than Hold but in other ways it's more vague and Hold is better and more specific. I'd recommend both. 

As Brandon does and would tell you, you can find all that information here for free on the BP site but it's not cohesive and requires sleuthing. The book is more than worth your time. 

The audible version of the book was subpar compared to other audible books because the editing was a bit off and there were somewhat awkward moments where Brandon couldn't get the words out, started over, then read them again. This is endearing but probably should have been edited out. 

I hope this helps. 

 Scott congratulations! A promotion in our industry at this time is very good. Welcome to Houston soon. I'd recommend getting a house in your interest areas that will be the bread and butter rental for that neighborhood in terms of sqft, age, etc. If you're really planning to rent it out later and move up. Your options are open with that price range to great things. I'd recommend speaking with @Sharon Tzib if you don't already have an agent. I grew up in energy corridor and am in my 30's. If you're looking for tips please don't hesitate to contact me. 

I also wouldn't recommend Sugar Land for a commute. Also, consider that energy corridor is more like energy town because of what people include in it these days. Given Houston traffic is terrible, you might want to live closer to work than Cypress. 

Roger, I'm not sure you understood what I meant so I'll be a little more clear. There are rules in Houston regarding minimum and maximum square footage on what is considered a separate unit. You should investigate with a HUD consultant or the City Planning/Permits on what they consider the maximum allowable footage in a separate structure that is separately metered. If this structure comes in small enough, you may not be considered as having a 5 unit property but instead a 4 unit property. I just went through something similar and ultimately decided not to use the FHA 203k because we weren't able to get what we needed done for a good price and the ball was dropped on a lot of fronts. My experience, however, told me taught me there are specific rules for separate dwellings that may define it as another unit or just an accessory unit. If it is an accessory unit, the underwriters of your loan and the city may consider this property still a 4 unit.

That being said, if you can get it to work as a 4-unit, then I think you're golden. As of December when I tried this, FHA 203k loans only worked on 4 or fewer units. The HomeStyle loan is a different matter but requires 5% down I believe. I am not sure if you can live in a 5 unit with the HomeStyle, owner occupied. Check with your mortgage broker if you already have one.

Be prepared for an arduous journey and make sure you find a mortgage broker who not only knows the rules but is actually up to date on any recent changes or you'll be left with the bag 2 weeks before close. You'll want to make things speedy by getting all your loan documents in order and constantly keep them up to date. Provide them more than you think you'll need and definitely keep on top of them. Make sure that all parties understand fully what you want to do with that property or things can go south very quickly. Fortunately if you do buy this property with this structure already purchased under a 4-unit, they (HUD) won't force you to connect the living structures. But it may make renovating the accessory unit difficult and you may not be able to accomplish it.

Be prepared for add-ons that FHA requires you to do to be compliant with an up-to-date home.

Also, we should have read this book before speaking with any loan officer: Real Estate's Best Kept Secret by Dennis and Teresa Walsh. We got royally screwed by our first HUD consultant and ultimately had our lender force him to pay us back. He charged us more than the second, better HUD consultant, Shelby who I wrote about up there, and he did absolutely no work. Additionally, he only repaid us $800 out of the $860 we actually paid him. But we were so sick and angry with the whole thing we just let it slide to be done with that joker.