All Forum Posts by: Lucas Hammer

So I have a 2-flat that I'm house-hacking and I'm working on renovating it, but the job is bigger than I thought and I'm trying to figure out the best way to pay for a larger remodel than we originally anticipated. We have an FHA mortgage on the property and are currently at 92% LTV based on the purchase price, but prices have noticeably gone up since we purchased the property.

I'm trying to figure out if just selling and hoping to recoup my initial investment or refinancing into a 203k (or taking out a loan to get the work done and refinancing) makes the most sense. So since I already own the place, is it possible to go from FHA to FHA 203k just to get the rest of the work done quickly before I lose it?

So I have an FHA loan on a multi-unit that I'm currently living in, but I want to look at a SFH for myself and move out now that I've been here a couple years. Do I need to refi my FHA to get a 5% down conventional on a single-family? I'm hoping to buy with something other than FHA for my single-family so the PMI will roll off on its own when I hit 80% LTV.

@Lisa Williams I'm probably looking to be pretty hands-off as I'm in the process of fixing up the 2-flat I'm house-hacking up here and am mostly looking for possibly a little bit of income and a place to stay when I visit my family down there, which is why I was looking into a property manager to handle everything where I can just stop in a couple times a year.

@Kate B. Yeah, sounds good! I'll message you tomorrow and we can setup a time if that works.

@Jeff Filali Thanks for the company name! All of the PMs I found weren't great or had absolutely terrible websites, so I've been looking for a better company. Do they manage any vacation rentals for you or do you use them for standard rentals?

So I'm looking to buy a SFH in Tulsa that I'll use sometimes as my family is from there. I don't want it to just be an expense though, so I'm considering using it as an AirBNB for the times that I'm not there. Does anyone know of a company/person that would take care of the details like yard maintenance, cleaning/laundry and any other details related to AirBNB that I'd be able to use remotely from out of state to care for the property? Would it just be a regular property manager with additional fees since they take more work?

@Naeem Barbour, sorry for the wait. 30th/Pulaski is pretty far southwest of me. I'm on the Northeast side of the neighborhood near Cermak and California, but I've spent time all over. The area is majority hispanic and from my personal experience, the farther southwest you go, the more you might run into Spanish-only-speaking tenants/neighbors. I haven't personally looked at rents over there in a while, but they'll likely seem low compared to almost any other neighborhood in the city, so be prepared.

I don't know what happened with it, but I think they're talking about building a hospital over that way which would be a big boom for the neighborhood.

As far as my experience from living here, most people are friendly, but I have gotten into it with a neighbor over a parking space. He was all talk and has moved out of that house since then so nothing ever came of it, but it wasn't the nicest welcome to the neighborhood. Other than that one instance everyone has been great to me, but I can't personally speak to the gang situation other than that we've heard some gunshots, but never had anything directly affect us.

So I have a two-flat that I'm house-hacking and I'm replacing the floor in my unit to be able to rent out later. We're planning on laying LVP/EVP or laminate, but I'm also rebuilding an internal staircase.

My question is: for anyone who's run into this, how do you go about laying the floor for the stairs. I've found some laminate/vinyl stair caps, but they're ridiculously expensive for what they are and we're trying to match the floors and the caps have very limited color options.

If you've done something that works, would you have any pictures to show as well? I want to go affordable, but don't want it to look too DIY.

Hi, I actually house hack in South Lawndale myself. Are you looking closer to the Cicero area near 26th/Pulaski or so? 

Hey everyone, I'm looking to buy a house in Tulsa this year and some of the properties I'm considering are in the <50k range. Does anyone have a recommendation for a lender that does small mortgage loans somewhere below the 50k line? I've only dealt with national lenders that have higher minimums so far. Thanks!

Thanks @Jerry Padilla! That eases my mind quite a bit.

@Andrew Postell, I have a question on the **** section. Is that saying that you actually can rent it out, but the money can't be used as income for loan qualification purposes? I'm just trying to make sure I understand that since it seems to be a contradiction to the "must not be rental property." On that note, does it mean that it can't be a rental at the time of purchase or at any point during the loan?