All Forum Posts by: Kerry Baird

Good to have you back after such a long break.  Looking forward to seeing your progress.

Might see a boost in values now that the Fed dropped rates. 

There doesn’t appear to be anything that screams at me to run away.  Nice to discover tenants who are neat, and you don’t have to experience a few months of vacancy right after you close. 

As for sellers, perhaps they need this one to contribute to the purchase of a larger property and time is ticking on the exchange.  The major concerns to me are the roof, the hot water heater, and similar.  Get an inspection.

Insurance is sufficient.  

@Jennifer Worthington, Welcome to BP.  Hope to see you posting questions or successes on the forums.  

Thanks for posting.

I'd reach out to a VA lender and see what they tell you. It looks to me as if you tick all the boxes.

Consider posting in the STR forum, for more eyes on your question. This is my slow part of the year, and I do all the things to move the algorithm…fiddle with order of photos, change seasonality in my photos, tick as many boxes as I can, fiddle with pricing.

Is the house rented?  

HELOC is best for short term money, because the interest rates are adjustable, while the second mortgage is a fixed rate for a period of time. I like them for an emergency fund, if I have over-runs with a renovation. I prefer this to using one for a down payment. Impossible to tell which would benefit you most.

I have found that lenders value the house in different ways; one is a full appraisal and the other is an automatic valuation…my credit union did a "drive by" valuation. Figure offers a quick HELOC, which we thought we'd get…but our DTI (debt to income) was too high. We also used PenFed for a HELOC, and that went well.

Tips: pull your own FICO score and call the local community banks and credit unions near you and ask what rates and terms they offer with a FICO like yours.  Make a table and compare, as interest rates and years of fixed vs variable rates will be all over the place.  Navy Federal has the longest draw and pay back period I have seen, whereas my local credit union has a very short draw/repayment period.  

Figure out what works best for your own situation.