I have a question. My grandmother bought our home about 15 years ago and due to financing and poor rehabbing work still owes quite a lot on the home and wants to sell the home and use the proceeds for me to buy a new home. I was wondering if it would be possible to use a business of a holding company to buy the home from her then use the proceeds to buy a duplex or triplex in my personal name. As a result, we would own two homes and rent out the old home. 

Do you guys think this is a viable idea? Do you guys have any suggestions that could help us? 

It's possible to finance under an LLC but it would only be deeded to the LLC and personally guaranteed by you. If your grandmother used the proceeds of YOU purchasing the property in order to assist you in buying another property, those funds would be considered a gift to you. Depending on the loan product you use that gift may not be able to get used for the new purchase. That's a very roundabout way of acquiring a property. Honestly, you'd be just as well off to buy it from her in your name and not deed it to the LLC and then purchase another property. Ensure your finances can handle getting hit with the debt service on your grandmother's place when you go to buy the new property. Since you won't have 24 months rent on it you can only have up to 75% of the gross rent amount added back to offset debt service but would require a lease in place to get that counted. And that's assuming, again, that you use a loan product which the guidelines would allow that.

Probably better to cash out refinance or just refinance the existing home if the financing is terrible. Could refi the house without cash out and maybe pull a HELOC for the next purchase. I think the name of the game in this case is avoiding tax "events", which a refi, cash-out refi, and HELOC would achieve for you.

You can keep the home in Grandmom's name, assuming she has good credit and a worthy financial history that would allow you to achieve this. If she does not, or the equity doesn't exist, or you have too much debt, or you don't have the funds for the next purchase...you're not ready. Clean up as much as you can to put yourself in the best position to execute.

The above comments are very good advice indeed.

As this is your first property, it might be simpler to follow grandma's plan? Sell her house, then use the proceeds (or a portion) to buy the du/tri-plex you are thinking of. You will still have the income from one or two units at your new property. Additionally, if you're planning to be your own property manager, you'll be onsite for those units. Whereas if you rent out grandma's house you won't be onsite. This is your first buy, make it as easy on yourself as possible for this turn.