All Forum Posts by: Zach Adams

Hi Zach,

I just came from PR a couple of months ago. I went there to check on a few properties to use as a vacation rental as well. Although I didn't close a deal this time, I checked with a few lenders in the US and none of them do loans for PR.  You are better off working with a local bank there, but the goods news is that you can take advantage of your income in the US and the interest rates are almost the same. I got pre- qualified from one called Fembi Mortgage, I went to their offices and they seemed legit, but there is also Oriental Bank and Banco Popular. It's good time to buy there, just watch out cause they are about to default on the creditors pretty soon and that may leave their economy tumbling for a while. But as some say; "where there is crises there is opportunity".  Where in PR are you thinking about buying?

Best,

Ariel 

I am from PR and the answer is yes, you can do conventional loans and FHA. I have been thinking about investing in the west coast.

I have been working on a way to get funds to purchase my first Buy and Hold property. I tried getting a HELOC through my Credit Union, but that fell through because only my wife is on the title. I then went trough a mortgage broker to do a Cash Out Refinance, which also would have added me to the title, but the appraisal came in far lower than I expected.

To make a long story short I thought about all of my options with my wife, and we came to the conclusion that the best option of us right now is to sell our home. This is what we came up with. 

• Refinish the cabinets in the Kitchen and add Granite counter tops as well as add a new back splash. I will also look into making room to add a dishwasher as the recently sold comps I looked at have both Granite and Dishwashers. 
• Fully Rehab the master bath leaving only the tile on the floor, seeing as the prior owner installed the whirlpool tub backwards and the also bring the 1/2 bath up to date.
• Add recess lighting in the living room

There are a few things that i can salvage like the hardwood floors that are in great condition. I am looking for an ARV of 125k. The comps I looked at ranged between 125k and 150k. They all are about 1 mile away and sold between 30-90 days ago. We Purchased the home for about 70k and I am budgeting about 15k worth of work just to be on the safe side. The plan after the sell is to find a small multi-family home to move into using a low down payment FHA loan, and look to purchase another property using any funds left from this first sale.

So I am looking for feedback to our plan. Has anyone else tried this? How did it work out? Any and all feedback is appreciated. 

I'm barely starting off in this business. I don't have that much money because I am going to school full time and working par time. I heard that there is ways to do it with no money down.

Make sure the existing PM places a good quality tenant, what you pay now is one point,  but you can pay big time if the PM places a lousy tenant.