All Forum Posts by: Eric Soloway

Thanks Rob!

That’s definitely an option. My wife likes managing things and is super organized so we are looking to be a little more active in real estate. 

Do you have any recommendations on companies that allow more than 70% CLTV on investment properties?

thanks @Kelvin He  

It is going to depend on your goals. If you want to grow your portfolio, i’m With @Cody L. and PMI is just an expense, keep up and send the letter as the house appreciates which could be a few years to ask for an appraisal to remove the PMI. if this is your only investment, then you can pay it down (you'll get the money back when you sell)

PMI is less than 1% of the loan balance so you'll need to put another $44,650 down at this point to save $86 a month. Doesn't make sense.

Kelvin, I've been in banking (but not directly mortgage) for 10 years so I know enough about this to be dangerous. First question to you is, 3% down is this a FHA loan? I'm not sure that a conventional loan can be below 5% and if it's an FHA loan, you're required to keep PMI forever or refinance to a conventional loan in order to have it removed.

That said if the loan is conventional, you have a few options. PMI can be removed by writing a letter when the LTV drops below 78%. Most companies will charge you for an appraisal when you make the request and then remove the PMI if you make it. To get to this level, you could either pay down the loan through payments or make some improvements to the property that raise the value or wait for the market to appreciate on it's own.

In the future, you might want to look for a deal that is below market price so when you buy the property you just have to wait for the loan to season (1 year) and you can ask for the PMI to be removed or popular on Bigger Podcasts is BRRRR where you'd fix up the house, rent it out and then refinance so you can move to the next property.

Hope that helps and isn't too confusing.

So here goes my first ever Bigger Pockets post!  I'm a natural rambler so I'm sure @Brandon Turner and I could be friends :)

My wife and I recently found Bigger Pockets and are getting caught up on webinars and podcasts so thanks to all!  We own a few houses that we converted from our primary residences to rentals and because of good (Lucky) decisions, we are fortunate enough to have some great equity built up.  That leads me to our first world problem!!!

We want to sell our biggest home in hopes the cash flow can be improved by splitting it into 2-3 homes versus one. I bought it as a foreclosure using an FHA Section 203k loan and my father and I put some sweat equity in later for 163,000. It's worth around 309,900 but due to some bad luck (Carpet delivery had bad carpet so we had to wait again) we missed the window for back to school to list the house and it's been sitting on the market for a couple weeks with a ton of showings but no offers (Williamson County is one of the top public school districts in the country). The floor plan is a little goofy in that the laundry is upstairs because the kids make the laundry, but I fear we missed that market and more established folks don't want to go upstairs to do laundry which I get. That gets me to my catch 22.

My wife and I are hoping to get into VRBO world so we can enjoy and make more cash flow than we are currently making, but I'm wondering if we should put that off 18 months, rent out the property again and then reconvene at a better time or suck it up, lose a few thousand off the asking price and get moving on our goals...

Financials - We owe 143,000 on the house (refinanced to conventional from FHA right after the seasoning period), it rents for $1850, mortgage, taxes insurance, HOA is $956, we just sunk $11,000 into carpet, paint, landscaping, replaced a vanity to get it ready to sell and I fear renting we might have to redo a couple of those things. We don't have a property manager and repairs are minimal so we clear over $500 a month with repairs and Cap Ex costs factored in.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2740-Nottingham...

Thanks for your advice and opinions in advance