All Forum Posts by: James Miller

@Chris Armantrout are you managing it your self? I have a duplex in Oak harbor and use rpm360, I think that's there name, with good results.

@Kobe McDaniel

Welcome! I'm house hacking a triplex in snohomish. I love snohomish. I have an awesome Realtor I can get you in touch with if you're interested. Real property management used to have monthly meet ups regarding land lord law and just general land lording and they were amazingly informative with no sales pitch. If enough of us on here bug them maybe they will offer them again. Attendance was super low which surprised me. I have a mortgage broker as well.

@Robert Freeborn

I second snohomish county but a word if caution. I strongly believe rent control is coming state wide very soon. And if its similar to California it will affect mutis harder than single family. Just something to keep in mind.

@Christopher Owens so you’re getting stationed there? Are you planning to use a va loan? I know nothing about the San Antonio market but I looked into San Antonio a few years ago and was caught off guard by how high the property tax was, really ate into the cash flow. But if you’re house hacking this would be less of a concern. When you do pull off a house hack be sure to talk to a knowledgeable tax person because depreciation and tax write offs are a bit more complicated when the owner occupies one side and rents out the other.

@Xela Batchelder I bank with a credit union and had no problem getting a heloc against my rental.

If the property is in decent shape, and you had a good home inspection before purchase, there shouldn't be many 3 am surprises. 

If it doesn't say for sale by owner I would assume it is for sale on the mls, so type the address into any real estate website, Zillow, redfin etc and see if its for sale. Then you would still use your realtor. If it is fsbo usually the add will say something like a buyer can use an agent or no agents if they don't want the buyer to use an agent. I don't know what the angle would be for listing a house for sale that isn't legit. I've seen and heard of houses that are for sale being listed for rent and then people charging background checks, or worse security deposits before showing. 

Landlords have 0 rights in Seattle and it's only going to get worse. Last year a rent control bill was drafted, at the state level, and this is a long legislative session year so its likely to pass considering the number of renters far outweighs the number of investors. And this rent control bill wasn't slightly reasonable like the one in California, I can't remember the exact verbiage but it was scary. 

Already in Seattle you cant denied based on the criminal background, and you can't evict in the winter because apparently all the snowflakes dancing on capitol hill get cold at 40 degrees ABOVE zero. 

Congrats. My advice based on personal experience is to REFI before you move out. You will get a much better rate and have an easier time qualifying before you move. I didn't do this and as a result, have a pretty high-interest rate, but I have good cashflow so it hasn't been worth the hassle yet to refi. Then you can take the equity from your current property and use it as a down payment on your next one. 

An aspect I don't yet have personal experience with is using a portfolio lender to refi. But this is something I want to look into. Using conventional lending you can basically only have I think, 10 mortgages. But a portfolio lender keeps the loan in house, like a credit union or small bank, so they don't have to abide by the Freddie Fannie rules. You will most likely need a lower ltv than conventional like 60 or 70% vs 80 or even higher, and will pay a higher interest rate, but instead of some huge lending institution that will sell your loan every couple years and never answer the phone you will probably deal with the same person at the bank every time and you can get as many of these loans as the bank will allow you to have. 

Oh and another thing, most lenders want to see 6 months of mortgage payments in the bank before they will qualify you for a loan on another property.

I hope this helps. I'm on my second house hack currently.