Help!!! Traditional vs FHA for investment property?..

Help!!! Traditional vs FHA for investment property?..

Rental Property Investor · Albany, OR · Member since 2018 · 7 posts · 0 votes

Hoping I can get some input as our refi situation seems to be changing constantly. Current mortgage is at a 4.625% 30 year. Payment is $1276. The goal is to get under $1200 a month payment so we decided to refi with the current rates being so great. Started a refi but didn't follow through as we weren't happy with the cost. Paid for appraisal which is still good for another month. Tried again with a second company. They've said we can go traditional but they won't accept the old appraisal. Or go FHA again and they'll accept it, saving us $750. Better rate with FHA vs traditional. So the mortgage insurance is kind of a wash from a monthly difference, leaving us to decide on which loan type to choose. My big question is this. This will be an investment/rental, so should we leave it FHA or go traditional? Also, cash out would be more if we stick with FHA. This wasn't really a concern however I have a $10k line of credit that is impacting my score a bit and I need to get it resolved. Traditional loan will only allow us to receive 2% of the mortgage amount at close, which doesn't help much. Hope this all makes sense. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, I would probably take more than $10k at close if I do FHA. This way I'll have some in the bank for the next purchase. Currently at $234k market value and I owe $160k. So I've got room to work with.

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  • Real Estate Broker · Salt Lake City & Oklahoma City · Member since 2018 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    6y

    Hi @Jay Thomas! There are a lot of details to consider with this type of side-by-side analysis for sure! I want to share a bit of the "heart" behind how I think through these things. In the final analysis your monthly payment in your monthly payment. I work with people consistently who are so whipped into a frenzy over certain fees and factors (like that the MIP with an FHA loan never goes away, but the PMI with conventional does). At the end of the day, though, if your monthly payment is $1,200 on a 30-year FHA loan or $1,200 on a 30-year conventional loan, then in 30 years they will BOTH be paid off (barring refinance, sale, etc) and they BOTH hit your cashflow target now.

    So, if they both achieve those factors then you can move on to the next question:  which is most cash efficient now?  If your net cash from the refi is better with one, and your monthly is unaffected then I'd suggest not giving too much concern to what the monthly amount goes to.  Just consider it the "cost of debt" and let the lenders figure out what acronyms to put beside each line.

    Those are my 2 cents!

  • Rental Property Investor · Albany, OR · Member since 2018 · 7 posts · 0 votes
    6y

    @Will Fraser

    Very well put! Thank you for that perspective. So the only question that remains for me is this. As a rental, is it easier to move forward with another purchase if this loan is FHA or conventional? What are the drawbacks when it comes time to purchasing what will more than likely be our new primary? Thanks again!

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