All Forum Posts by: Dustin B.

I am somewhat of a newbie myself, but i would definitely recommend attending the REIA meetings. It's great to hang out with like-minded people and people who have been in your shoes at one point of their life. I haven't been able to get to as many meetings as i would like to yet, but will be soon.

Hello BP, have a question on getting creative for financing that I am hoping one/some of you could help provide guidance as my wife and I try to navigate a second property.

Our current situation, we have an owner occupied duplex. we purchased this property roughly a year ago and we put 5% down for a 5/1 ARM loan. Paying a PMI but we didn't get the FHA requirements. One side was newly remodeled and we have been living and remodeling the other side. I am not 100% where our current equity position would be, but I'm sure we still are not hitting that 20% ownership mark. (This place has been a learning experience more than anything).

However, we were looking at exploring a 3.5% down FHA loan and getting a nicer/newer place in the area - a place that has a bit more room as we are running out of space. We are currently debating another duplex if we can get an FHA or we'd be looking at the standard 20% on a single family.

I plan on contacting some smaller lenders in the area for financing, but does anyone have experience in this area? Can you get financed on an FHA loan if you don't own a full 20% on current property? Any other tips/suggestions? Thanks!

I currently live and own a duplex in Appleton - it’s hard to really gauge an average and it does really depend on what zip code. North Appleton (54911) tends to be little higher than East/West/South. We are currently starting to look for our second place but on average I’ve been seeing can be between 1500 to nearly 3000 

I apologize as this may be a dumb question but I'm a complete new to REI. We bought our first duplex in August and are owner occupying at the moment. We haven't done our taxes yet but heading to a CPA in the next week. I was wondering if real estate investing books are considered tax deductible? We do not have an LLC yet so would it still fall under "business/education expense" ? Any information would help! Thanks

Good morning everyone,

I am looking to jump into real estate investing primarily with rental properties. My future wife and I are currently renting but looking to purchase our first "property" together and are currently planning on owner-occupied multi-family unit.

Since we would be looking at our first property and owner occupying, we are looking to utilize a FHA loan to get 3.5% down payment. The kicker is - like many 20-30 year olds, we face the evils of student loans and do not have much saved up for a down payment. On a side note, we have been pre-approved over the amount of price ranges we have been targeting.

We came across a beautiful 4 unit/8bdrm townhouse (built in 2016) in a desirable part of town. We actually were looking to rent one of the units before we took our current apartment. Each of the units are renting between $900-$1000/mo and in this area it is an affordable, yet reasonable. The price tag on this property is $379k. Since we are looking to owner-occupy, we believe this would be a great opportunity to leverage 3.5% down payment to get our start into investing.  Now for the bad part, we could probably come up with about half of that amount total as down payment. I know there are many creative ways to get funding so I am turning to experienced investors on BiggerPockets to see if there is a way we could swing this, or if this property is too big of a leap to start as a beginner without a large down payment. I would like honest feedback.

I know that FHA loans allow for gifts which I could most likely get from a friend/future partner, as a "handshake" and technically be without repayment listed on any sort of contract. Eventually would either gift his amount back or would gift 50% of units later on (but based on a merit agreement). Since I am new at this, I do not know the legality or technical qualifications for gifts on FHA loans.

Is the above mentioned scenario feasible? is there any other ways to get financing without much of a down payment? The other option was borrowing against 401k, but I would be hesitant to make this move until I am more experienced in real estate.

Any suggestions? ideas? Thanks in advance