How are house hackers continuously house hacking from 1 house to another?

Question

I had househacked in the past for a 3plex building that I own in Texas but have moved out of. I still have a FHA 30-year long low interest mortgage on this 3plex and all 3 units are rented out to long term tenants. How would I continue to househack? How do investors here continuously househack? I can only have 1 FHA mortgage at a time, right?

Andrew Postell · Answer

@Susan Tan thanks for the post here. Now, to tackle this upfront - you can have more than 1 FHA loan at a time. There are some qualification things that go with it, but it is possible. Please make sure you are speaking to lenders about this so they can guide you appropriately. FHA loans are quite impossible to get on any 3-4 unit properties right now anyway (again, speak to a lender on why this is the case). And lots of people will house hack single family homes or single family homes with ADUs. As mentioned above, refinance current loans to free up future loans. However, I would not suggest refinancing that mortgage but rather explore the other options first.

Hope all of that makes sense.

Riley Kuranishi · Answer

I agree with what Dan mentioned, as long as you have the lease agreements and can show you've been a reliable landlord with rental income to help offset your current mortgage you don't need to necessarily refinance out of your current home.

I've always been under the impression to put as little down as possible, but with where interest rates are currently at, it might benefit you to put more down than the ways things have been in the past.

House hacking - especially if you're living in it, works best when renting out per room. You can get exponentially more money per room as opposed to doing per home, per unit, etc. It's slightly more work but I find this way is much more profitable if you have the opportunity to do so.

Best of luck in your house hacking journey!

Dan Guenther · Answer

Hey @Susan Tan - Yes you can only have one FHA mortgage at a time but you still have some options to get into the next house hack. I'd get connected with your go-to lender and let them know what your plan is. One option would be to refinance that FHA into a conventional loan product, however with your low interest rate this might not be the best choice. You can also look into conventional loan products which go as low as 5% down for a single family,15% down for two-units, 3-4 units @ 25% down. Your lender should be able to use a percentage of your current rental income to help you qualify for the next loan.

There are also investor-specific loan products out there that offer as low as 10% down but these must be strictly an investment property.

Ricardo R. · Answer

@Susan Tan it's awesome hear that your are house hacking and moving your investment football downfield. Yes, that is usually correct, you can only have on FHA loan/mortgage at a time. You will need to refinance out of it and then use it again on your new place or new house hack. That's how it is done with FHA and VA. --- So you will get it refinanced into a new loan/mortgage, the new lender will pay your current FHA loan off which will free it up and 'reset' it again and then you will be able to use your FHA again on a new purchase just like you did with your first one. I hope this helps.

How are house hackers continuously house hacking from 1 house to another?

How are house hackers continuously house hacking from 1 house to another?

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