All Forum Posts by: Karen Bickford

Great job Amy! Keep up the hard work. 

This is very common. You can get an endorsement on you current policy. 

Alternatively you could put a few pieces of furniture in the home.  I would probably just go for the endorsement until it is rented. 

I just did a google  search for "Why is my bank asking me what I am going to do with a cash out refi" like it is any of their business and I came across this.

I did tell them it was to buy more properties and my loan officer said no don't say that!  I am like HUH?  This is my money I  bought the decrepit house, fixed it up and now I want to take my money and buy more houses with the money is wrong?

All they should be concerned with is my ability to pay the loan back am I missing something?

I just experienced this very same problem.  I have a condo that I won out right and wanted to tap into the equity to buy another property. To my shock and horror I was told Fannie Mae will not finance in a building that is less than 80% owner occupied. 

Very disheartening as when I go to sell they will have to be cash buyers. I don't plan on selling as it is long term investment but still upsetting.

@Cody Barrett  IMO cats do more damage due to the urine/litter box issue. I allow most dogs but cats no😕

Hello BP Nation!

Had a very bad/good wake up call today and wanted to share.  

I have a condo in Florida in a tourist town.  It is a very nice condo and I earn very nice returns as I paid for it out right.  

The dilemma started today when I thought I would leverage it to buy another property in Mexico.  (You have to bring your own money to the table there, unless you want to pay usurious rates for money).  Perfect I have plenty of equity in Florida I will use that.

Fast forward.. It is a 55 unit property and most of the condos rent weekly.  The loan officer asked me about he "owner occupancy rate" There are 55 condos and 54 rent weekly.  The "owner occupancy rate is 15%"

There are no Fannie Mae refinance  or loans that will fund a condo with less than 50% owner occupancy.  Basically I have half a million dollars that I can't do anything with and if I sell it, it would have to be a cash buyer or I would have to owner finance.

So moral of the story is know the rules with condo financing especially if they are not owner occupied.

Very long day and very hard lesson :(

Yikes @Stephan Haas Sorry to hear this. It is likely you have learned a lot from this  experience and will use  it going forward. Hang in there!

@Tawny Bloom I do this with all of my tenants. I set up a Quick books merchant account and you can do an e check or credit card. You can set it up to do recurring each month. The drawback is there is a 3 %  fee on the. Credit card charges. E check is a nominal fee.

I only use cast iron due to durability. Your tenant or your tenants maid service will scratch the acrylic with abrasive cleaners.  It is pretty tough to  damage cast iron imo

@Hannah Williams I am sorry to hear this.  Hopefully there will be a swift resolution and  you got your life's lesson :)  no good deed goes unpunished unfortunately.