Active duty service member looking at REI in the Bay Area

[Kourtney McCullough]

Hello BP,

I'm Active Duty Navy currently residing in the Bay Area. I'm very interested in REI in a small multifamly home using my G.I. Bill and was wondering if anyone could share their experience or knowledge.

[Chris Mason]

Originally posted by @Kourtney McCullough:

Thank you @Chris Mason

Very helpful and I appreciate you for taking the time out to go into detail. Do have any suggestion of how I could get those couple of years landlord or property management experience under my belt?

 While on active duty? In theory, if it was sufficiently well documented, Marine company gunnery sergeants are responsible for barracks management (translate that into Navy-speak por favor). I'm thinking outside the box here, and we'd definitely keep loan contingency in place until this was signed off by underwriting, but maybe if you had a NAM (link for those that have never been in the Naval service) where the citation described your excellent management of the BEQ over the last two+ years I'd be able to sell it to underwriting.

I know if I just tried to say "oh he was a company gunny, here's what company gunnys do" I'd get massive pushback from underwriting because that description of what a company gunny does is not specific to this particular exact borrower and doesn't have his name on it. A NAM that described barracks management, by contrast, will have that person's name on it and specifically discuss the duties of property management in a way that a civilian underwriter could be made to comprehend.

I'm kind of spitballing here. What are your thoughts?