All Forum Posts by: Yulia J.

Thanks, I am following. My husband and I have been trying to find the next deal. Yesterday, he was on the train scrolling through the details of a new listing. He came home 20 minutes later and said, let's look at it, it might be something, so we went back to the website, and the house was already contingent! 6 hours on the market. And it was not even something we would be interested in after we analysed it!

@Upen Patel , thank you. I don't know yet if we need the rental income to qualify, but that would definitely help. I thought we just needed 1 or more years tax returns showing profit. 

@Christian Scallayes, to refi into conventional we need 20% equity, not sure about all banks, maybe small community banks have their own rules?

Hi guys, need your advice here. We are house-hacking a 3-flat, got it on FHA. We have lived in it for some time, and now want to move on, rent it out completely and get another property. We've looked at purchasing and house-hacking another 2-4 unit in a better school area for our kids, using a conventional loan with 5% down on a duplex or 10% down on a 3-4 unit. Now we are told the rules by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have changed, and we have to put down 20% with a conventional loan, on a 2-4 unit, even owner-occupied. We don't have quite enough cash to put down a 20% on a 2-4 flat, so we are now thinking how to adjust our strategy.

Option 1, to pay more cash on our triplex up to 20% equity and refi out of FHA. Then we could use FHA again on the next 2-4 unit and move into it. We would probably need to borrow another 10K or so, maybe from a relative for the next FHA downpayment. Advantage: we can do another FHA with 3.5% down and get more units. Disadvantage: it's not cool just to use up all our cash, need to borrow more from a relative.

Option 2, just get a SFH next and move into it, this can still be done using a conventional loan with 5% down. Of course, interest rate would be a bit higher, and there will be PMI. Advantage: don't need to borrow from a relative, will still have some 10-15K left over for whatever, easier to find a SFH with add-value potential compared to a 2-4 unit. Disadvantage: getting a SFH instead of more units under one roof, as we will live in it we will have to do mortgage payments without other units' support as in a 2-4 unit property.

Option 3: wait till equity in out triplex will grow closer to 20% and then refi. Disavantage: we don't know what the market is going to do, and waiting is not cool.

What would you do? Maybe there is something obvious I am missing. Just got the news about changes yesterday and have to scrap our original plan.

@Dustin Albers, sorry it doesn't work for you. The links still work for me. Try to go to this short article, there is a link there "call for action" http://chicagoeviction.com/2017/03/landlords-control-coming/

This would be bad. Let's take action! I just signed  this:   call for action

i got the link from this article: article

We also have a 3-unit with baseboard heat (and we are close to you so the type of the building is probably similar). We also considered mini-splits for a little while. Our tenants pay their own gas heat though (which actually still has to be checked and confirmed) so we decided not to change anything yet. 

Our neighbor (same type of a 3-unit as ours, owner occupied) pays for tenants heat. She put locked covers over their thermostats so that they can't turn it too high without her permission. 

3-unit in Cook County, garbage/recycle $58.61 a month for the smallest containers. I expect our water to be around $350 a quarter judging by what the village told me and our 1st bill.

We are changing panels and adding one more, switching to GFCI outlets, etc We will have a temporary hookup after the village inspection and before the power provider's inspection. The electrician will be done within 2 days, but then it will take 1-2 days to wait for the village inspector.  we will talk to the renters. One of them plans to be out of town for a few days so we are trying to match that timeframe. I also found an OK hotel within a walking distance, just to be ready for now. 

@Account Closed Thanks a lot, Sue. This makes a lot of sense to me! I've just finished typing up letters to renters. I was a renter myself not so long ago, and I did let my renter's insurance lapse after the 1st year:) the landlord didn't require it though.