All Forum Posts by: Troy Pletcher

@Michele Z. I actually already am house hacking my current house. My mortgage is $812 and I am currently collecting $600 a month on a room but they are moving out next month. I’m actually not active duty so there will be no PCS’ing anytime soon haha.

@Lee Ripma. I do have some capital. I have $20,000 cash and then I have another $32,000 in stocks. I would prefer to not touch the money in stocks and rather find another source of capital but the option is still there as a last resort. From what I have read, a HELOC is not possible with a VA laon. The only option is a cash out refinance but maybe I was reading some bad info. I would love to house hack a multi-unit such as a duplex but I think the only way that would be possible for me to even qualify for that is if I sold my house and then rented out a room from a friend for a few months and hoped that something would become available on the market. My realtor made the hopes of finding a nice duplex like I wanted sound nearly impossible in our area. He said they hardly ever come on the market and when they do, investors buy them fast with cash usually. I guess I was just wondering if it would even make sense selling my house for the capital gain, even though that means I would eventually have to purchase another home in the same inflated market? I think it would allow me to get into a townhouse with zero down using my VA Ioan and I'd now have more capital to use as down payments on a rental .

Good evening everyone! I am new to the BP forums and REI in general and was hoping to get some opinions from you all on the best way for me to go about getting my journey started in REI. My current goal is to get invested in long term rentals. I'm trying to decide if I should sell my house in what I believe is a seller's market that we are having in Troutman North Carolina and surrounding areas. I purchased my house using a VA loan with zero down about 2 years ago and currently owe $143,000. I had a local realtor run some comps on my house and we believe based on comparable homes listed in the area that I can now potential get close to $185,000 for it . I was wondering, would it be a wise decision to sell my house to cash in on the potentially $30,000-$40,000? Obviously I would still have to find a place to live and I would probably be purchasing another residence in the same seller's market but I was thinking I could purchase a town home using my VA loan with zero down and then I'd still have the $30,000-$40,000 from selling my house. The plan would be to live in the townhouse for the required 12 months and then later rent it out. I currently have $20,000 liquid cash and after selling my house could now potentially have $50,000-,$60,000 to use as down payments on maybe 1-2 rentals. DTI ratio is a problem for me as my gross annual income is currently only $41,000 so I may need a bigger down payment just to meet the required DTI with a conventional mortgage.

Thanks @Jaysen Medhurst for replying to my long unorganized post haha.

Maybe it was the way I worded it but I feel like I have a pretty good understanding on how a portfolio loan works. I was just under the assumption that the interest rates would be higher than a conventional mortgage but maybe I was wrong?

It looks like a portfolio loan is my best chance at getting approved until I have two years worth of rental income proof to meet the DTI ratio required on a conventional loan. Unfortunately a HELOC is not an option on a VA loan or so I was told.

I honestly feel like I don't really need to pull out any equity on my house just yet as I have $20,000 cash to use as a down payment on a rental and then I have another $32,000 in stocks I can pull out if needed. Obviously the bigger the down payment thought, the better my DTI ratio should be I guess.

Another option that I am currently thinking about is selling my home(to free up my VA loan and hopefully make a profit) and then trying to find a nice duplex to house hack. I feel like I could live almost mortage free and then still have enough cash to purchase a separate rental.

Good evening everyone! I'm actually just looking for some advise on a decision I need to make. I am looking at getting into real estate investing and I plan of doing it through single family or small multi-family rentals using townhouses or possibly condos at first. I'm currently on chapter 5 of the BP Ultimate Beginner Guide and I'm at point where I feel like I need to make up my mind on the type of loan I should use so I can start pursuing that option. After reading the guide, I decided that either a conventional loan or a portfolio loan was best for what I want to do. Ideally I'd like to go with a conventional loan over the portfolio for the better rates but theres one issue, my debt to income ratio. My gross annual income is only around 41K at my current job and my only debt is my VA loan on my home which I've been in almost 2 years and I pay $812 a month. I still owe $143,000 on it. For the rental I'm planning on a budget between $120,000 -$150,000 and I do have enough cash for the 20% down. There is one catch to this all though. I am currently renting out a room in my house for $600 a month. If I included that into my gross annual income then I should I have no issue meeting the required debt to income ratio for a conventional loan but unfortunately I have been doing this for only a few months (I believe 10 months now?) and have yet to record this on my income taxes for this year as I have yet to file them for 2019. I talked to my local big branch bank as a first step to see if they would approved me for a second mortgage and I was turned down for my debt to income ratio as they could not include the rent money I am collecting on my room because they would need 2 years of proof. So to my question. If I added my $600 monthly room rental income on my taxes this year, is there any lender out there that would take that into consideration when calculating my debt to income ratio or will the lack of two years worth of proof be a dealbreaker for most lenders? If a conventional loan is out of my options for now, is a portfolio loan my next best option? I heard that they aren't as strict on things such as debt to income ratios but that their interest rates tend to be higher? How much higher can I expect the interest rates to be over a conventional loan? Are there any other great loan options that I'm missing?