All Forum Posts by: Chris Lohmeier

@Carolyn Newborn unfortunately the one I use is closed membership to only employees of a certain company.   I've also gotten in house appraisals from some of the local banks, Union Bank and Trust and Cattle Bank here in Nebraska when I was shopping around.  They are far more likely to have these services if they are local in the area you are buying in. 

@Carolyn Newborn You might want to look into smaller Credit Unions also.  One that I work with routinely does only 'drive by' appraisals for homes that are occupied.

Hi Jerrad. I own a 5-plex in a small town in East Central Nebraska, and have actually had people who say they were appraisers from my bank (they weren't) go into the building and try to talk to tenants about the kind of info you were describing as well as looking to get my number.  Luckily I have good tenants who told them that the bank they were supposedly working for already had my contact information and if the 'appraisers' really needed it they should contact the bank and get it from them.  

I have no idea what the end game is here, but it is rather disconcerting.  

Just as an FYI in case someone hasn’t seen it yet, Zillow is now accepted rent payments through their Rental Manager website. Last week they started an application service with Credit and Background checks. As of right now this is all free so it looks like they are trying to start taking Cozy head on. I haven’t used it yet but have a couple units open, so I might take it for a spin shortly.

Have any of you had the opportunity to use any of their services yet? 

Has any one looked very far into Zillow's new tenant screening service? 
On the surface it looks pretty slick.  Tenants pay for their own background and credit checks and you just get a notice that someone applied.  It's looks to be even cheaper than the latest update to SmartMove.

@Jeremy England

I've made that work, albeit on a smaller scale. One thing to make sure of if you're looking to refi is to take into account that your credit will take a hit as the loan is unsecured, and your DTI will look pretty rough because of the payment amount. I'd advise talking to your refinance lender first. I would think you could get around most of those problems by signing a letter from your lender that promises to payback the personal loan with the proceeds from the refi.

Those numbers seem way off. I just walked out of a closing two hours ago.

This was a bit of a special one since I was using collateral, but when I’ve put 20% down I was seeing roughly the same results, with the exception of needing to cut them a check for the 20%.

I would be looking for a new bank and title company.

@Alexa K. Between the Sofi loan and the new mortgage on the property I took about a 30 point hit. 
Some disclaimers though, the Sofi loan only made up about 5% of my total open balances, and while it did drop my average age of history it didn't bring the average down by more than a year.  I'd assume if the loan had more of an affect on these two categories it could lower your score by a bit more.  
I'll also mention that this was three months ago and my score has already bounced back by about half of the drop already.

Hope that helps. 

I’ve had different opinions on this at different times as I’ve grown. Below is pretty much what I have done.

I used to have a different account for each property with my Credit Union. In Credit unions each ‘account’ can have sub accounts. It was broke down like this:

xxxxx1: “O” Checking = Rent in, Bills/Expenses Out;

xxxxx1: "A" Savings = Reserve funding in, CapEx out;

xxxxx1: “S” Savings with limited withdrawals = Deposits Held;

xxxxx1: “M” Mortgage loan account

xxxxx2: “O” Checking = Rent in, Bills/Expenses Out;

xxxxx2: "A" Savings = Reserve funding in, CapEx out;

xxxxx2: “S” Savings with limited withdrawals = Deposits Held;

xxxxx2: “M” Mortgage loan account

And so on

This was fine up to a point, then it got way to convoluted keeping track of everything.

I now have one account labeled ‘Rentals' with sub accounts of checking and savings for rent and expenses and an "S" savings for all deposits. Vacancy and Repair funds go into the savings account at the end of the month. CapEx funds are transferred into a separate account for better tracking and each month on the 10th I transfer the full next month’s mortgage amounts to another account with auto payments setup, so if something crazy ever happens and I’m sort on mortgage payments, that transfer will fail and I’ll know way ahead of time.

Example.

xxxxx1: “O” Checking = All Rent in, Bills/Expenses Out;

xxxxx1: “A” Savings = All Reserve funding in, Repairs;

xxxxx1: “S” Savings with limited withdrawals = Deposits Held;

xxxxx2: “A” Savings = Mortgage Holding account;

xxxxx2: "S" Savings = CapEx Reserve Funds;

I have a credit card specifically for rental purposes, always paid off from the rental account; and the rest of my personal accounts are all separate.

I wouldn’t use a CD for deposits as they have a locked time frame on them and things always come up. Finally, of course, check your state laws before doing anything.

This is absolutely possible. I did this with Sofi in a roundabout way on one of my last purchases. You do have to be careful in that Sofi will not give you a personal loan to use as a down payment or for the purchase of a property, but they have no problem lending for home improvements, and as you stated, they don't ask a lot of questions. You already noted some of the pitfalls but you'll also want to take into account that your credit will take a hit as the loan is unsecured, and your DTI will look pretty rough because of the payment amount. I'd advise talking to your refinance lender first. Though I'm guessing you could get around most of these problems by signing a letter from your lender that promises to payback the personal loan with the proceeds from the refi.