Real Estate Broker · Mount Vernon, WA · Member since 2017 · 40 posts · 5 votes
Hi,
We lived in Washington now and are looking to gradually move to Tampa Florida.
We are trying to obtain our second rental home with the intention of living there in a few years when we moved there. So I have talked to a bank and we will try a second vacation home type financing with 10% down. Does this seem like a good down payment amount?
We are looking at Tampa Florida but willing to look at surrounding goof area too. Which area do you know that is good in Florida?
Any beach property is a great investment. There is always high demand for rent and rates vary depending on if they are waterfront or not but all are strong. Like some of the other posts 20% down eliminates PMI but if you purchase the home as a second home you have more flexibility. The south beaches in Pinellas County such as Treasure Island, Madeira Beach and St Pete Beach are great areas as well as downtown St Pete.
@Bao Chau Tran congrats on making the decision to purchase in Tampa.
What are your goals? Do you want to rent it annually and then move into it later on? Are you looking into short term rental and then you use it on occasion?
Most of my clients are putting down 20% to get the lowest possible interest rate. You can borrow with 10% down but that triggers PMI and a higher rate structure. As far as "average rent," that doesn't exist as wide variations occur between markets as well as how the property will be utilized (short,long term rental or vacation). What I can offer is that Tampa Bay is experiencing 7.2+% year-after-year rent increases. Unfortunately, our property prices are increasing fast as well and it is more the norm to have multiple full price or better offers in days. If you can provide more information such as your price point and desired location(s), more specific information can be provided.
Tampa Bay is a great place to live, work, play - and invest. I look forward to having you here.
My ultimate long term goals is passive income through rental properties.
We will keep our first property in WA later for rental when we made our move to FL. Ideally I would like to find multi family home to buy and rent out now. So that later I can live in one section and rent out the other.
@Bao Chau Tran Look at Citizens Bank, they have good secondary property rates with 10% down and PMI is reasonable.
If you do wind up going to the Tampa area, I'd highly recommend you get a good pulse on the insurance rates as well as these can flutuate a ton depending on the area. That was a major learning curve for me.
@Bao Chau Tran link up with an insurance agent or just run quotes online. A lot of carriers don't write insurance in FL so it make take some sifting to find the best deal. Some houses can be $1.5K / year and some can be double that, especially if there's flood insurance involved. All i'm saying is definitely make sure you factor that into your analysis, it's important in FL.
Any beach property is a great investment. There is always high demand for rent and rates vary depending on if they are waterfront or not but all are strong. Like some of the other posts 20% down eliminates PMI but if you purchase the home as a second home you have more flexibility. The south beaches in Pinellas County such as Treasure Island, Madeira Beach and St Pete Beach are great areas as well as downtown St Pete.