All Forum Posts by: Grant Schroeder

Hello BP Community!

I am looking for recommendations for a new CPA that is good with Schedule E, responsive, adds great value for the cost, and is knowledgeable. I am not afraid to pay $900-$1,300 for a CPA who knows what they are doing and takes great care of me as a client during tax season and throughout the year with tax-related questions.

I have used the same CPA in Newberg, Oregon the past two years and this year they have made an absolute mess of my tax return. I am doing their job for them in multiple instances on Schedule A and Schedule E. We have our primary residence and 3 Schedule E rentals, and my wife and I are both W2 employees. Nothing too crazy or outside the norm. We are organized with Bookkeeping throughout the year and submit all needed documentation upfront. I submitted my documentation to them on February 25th, and they are just now sending me my federal and state return to review this week (4/26). I have found errors on Schedule A, Schedule E, and Carry Over Losses in two drafts they have sent thus far. It is time to look elsewhere as this is costing me time and money that it should not be. 

I look forward to hearing your recommendations!

I will message you @Victor Tran 👍🏼

Hello @Albert Padilla! Welcome to BP. A good lender will help you lay out scenarios with different amounts of cash out to find a payment that you are comfortable with. Taking advanatge of low interest rates right now for your home to be able to go an reinvest that equity is a great strategy for capitalizing on today's low interest rate. Shoot me a DM if you have any questions about loan specifics. I am happy to help!

@Miguel Hernandez Congratulations on having the courage to take the first step! Couple questions for you to help clarify your goals around your first home purchase:

1) Will this just be a single family home which you live in as a primary residence with your family? Or are you looking to use your FHA loan to house hack a 2-4 unit property?

2) If you are purchasing a single family for your first purchase there are also some great conventional loan solutions with just 3-5% down.

I look forward to hearing more about your story and goals for your first home purchase! Please do not hesitate to send me a DM if you have further questions about the lending side and want to put a game plan together for your first home purchase. I am happy to help!

@Ibrahim Yamini Thank you for your service! @Zach Wain makes a great point about the VA funding fee for a cash out refinance. I agree with him that doing a conventional cash out refinance up to 80% LTV would be the best play to save you money on upfront fees. This would still give you $70k -$75k to purchase an investment property or use your VA loan to purchase another primary in 12 months. If you are buying a single family investment property, you can put as little as 15% down, and there are solutions to avoid mortgage insurance.

An important distinction here, is that just like when you purchase a home as a primary residence, when you pull cash out of your primary residence, you need to live there for 12 months before you can go and get another primary residence loan. If you want to purchase right away, you have 3 options to access the equity in your home:

1) Pull Cash out as a Primary Residence & purchase an investment property. (If you want to buy another primary, you would need to wait 12 months like Zach said. The only downside is you would be paying interest on the money you pull out while you wait to buy & reinvest that capital)

2) Pull Cash out of your current home as an investment property, and then go buy a primary residence. (the interest rate for pulling cash out as an investment property would be much higher than a primary, so this may not be your best option)

3) Take a HELOC out on your primary residence up to 80% CLTV and purchase another property - This option allows you the flexibility to purchase now or later on your timeline without paying interest on the money until you are ready to use it.

Please do not hesitate to send me a message here on BP if you have further questions about strategizing for your next purchase. I am glad to help!

Hi David, great question. If I am reading your post right, you currently have about 5% equity in your home and are looking to just rate/term refinance to a lower interest rate, correct? You are not looking to pull cash out or anything, right? I have been helping another BiggerPockets investor, Arie, in Orange County & Ventura with his primary and rental properties over the past several months. I would be happy to take a look at your situation and see if our team might be able to assist you with your goal for refinancing? Please do not hesitate to shoot me a message here on BP if you have further questions about refinancing. I would be glad to help!

@Jonathan Stone We have meetups once a month at Bellingar Estates in Newberg for Investor Lab hosted by @Ben Nelson. Come check it out! We do deal analysis, local economic/market updates, and cover a wide range of topics from flips & airbnb to house hacking & wholesaling. Feel free to shoot me or Ben Nelson a DM and we can get you connected to the meetups.

@Kay Megan Corpuz Brad Hammond makes some great points above for your first house hack! A good lender can help you with making sure the property and market rents will meet the self-sufficiency test for an FHA loan if you are looking at a 3 or 4 unit property to house hack. It's always good to get connected with a lender early in the process to gauge what you are preapproved for. Once you have a good idea of your maximum purchase price from a lender, your realtor of choice can help you find properties that fit your criteria and maximum purchase price. Please do hesitate to send me a message here on BP if you have further questions about house hacking or the lending side of things! I am happy to help.

@Chace Fraser Thanks for the in depth analysis! I love how you lay out all of the options. I am a lender who helps house hacking clients as well as a 2x house hacker myself. 

We have multiple clients who have purchased a 2-4 unit in just 1 spouses name using an FHA loan as you mentioned, and then the other spouse purchases another 2-4 unit with their own FHA loan 1-2 years later. It's a great strategy, the only downside is you have to refinance out of PMI like you said. For @Mark Alston, if his wife's credit and income is not enough to have her own FHA loan for their second house hack, like @Brad Hammond mentioned, he would need to rate/term refinance the current FHA loan into a conventional loan to then go and use his FHA loan again on his 2nd house hack.

One important thing to note, a conventional "Homeready" loan was Fannie Mae's solution for 1-4 unit properties and lower income borrowers. This has required 15% down for quite some time on a duplex. The Conventional "Home Possible" loan solution that Chace used for his first house hack was Freddie Mac's conventional loan solution for 1-4 unit properties and lower income borrowers. This used to be a 5% down loan solution for duplexes for a long time becuase Freddie Mac has a higher threshold for risk than Fannie Mae does. Within the past several months, Freddie Mac has raised the "Home Possible" required downpayment for owner-occupied duplexes to 15% just like Fannie Mae's HomeReady and the traditional Conventional loan solution without any income caps. The HomeReady & HomePossible loan solutions have an income cap still, and lower mortgage isnurance options when compared to the traditional 15% down Conventional solution, but now they both also require 15% down as well. 15% down for a duplex is still much better on interest rates and cash out of pocket when compared with needing 25% down as an investment loan. If someone is still looking for a lower downpayment option than the 15% conventional solution, the best remaining low downpayment option for 2-4 unit properties is the FHA loan currently.

@Mark Alston @Chace Fraser @Brad Hammond  If you or your clients ever have questions about house hacking or strategizing for the next purchase, I would be happy to hop on a phone call or Zoom meeting to walk through the details. Please do not hesitate to shoot me a Message here on BP if you have more questions on the details or you'd like to talk further.

@Josh Gold That's awesome Josh! Do you think you will buy your SFH in Newberg as well? Let me know if you'd like to swing by our Academy Mortgage office in Newberg or hop on a call to talk strategy for your next purchase. I am glad to help!