All Forum Posts by: Sarah Brown

Can you do a HELOC?

Generally I would say short term projects.  Basically types of deals where you will pay the money back quickly, but I have heard of some folks getting financing for longer term with lower rates.  That just isn't the norm. 

I use a Keurig for my STR in SC. It only hosts 2 people. I also provide pods. I have never had anyone get carried away with using "too many" pods while visiting. I get kind of weirded out when I see folks leave their left over grounds. I don't know that I trust other people's "cleanliness" 😅. I go there twice a year and clean it while there to maintain it.

Work with your lender to help determine the benefit of more down or not. Sometimes it's better to only put the minimum down because the break isn't significant enough when you put down the extra 5%. That being said when you BRRR, you are refinancing in the somewhat near future. So there will be other opportunities to move money around then also.

Their accounts are always free for landlords.  You have to go to their website and set up for a demo and go through the process that way.  They no longer allow you to just "sign up."  Then there will be an onboarding process.  It's not hard, but does take several days. 

The time it takes to process an application in 100% dependent on you, your processes, and your policies.  Some people can process an application in 24 hours, some take a week.  Are you looking for near perfect credit, or are you open to some dings?  What types of criminal history will you allow vs not?  Once approved, how fast does your policy dictate that they have to give you a deposit?  I could ask another 100 questions, but I think you get the idea :). It's kind of the off season for rentals, so I would take that in mind also.  If you can get yourself some rental stats for your area, that will also help. 

Thats the big N.O. for a rental property.  I also don't use them on my personal, but that personal choice.  I like to be able to decide how I want to fix things and not a contractor that I have to hire becuase the warranty company says I do. 

If you move your primary residence, he will lose yous tax advantage on the investment property. Obviously not really big deal if he owns it out right, but it will be something you want to consider in your calculations. Given the income and lack of debt, I would probably pull a HELOC on the current primary, but the house you want and do what you need to make it livable. Hire a PM to manage the current primary once it becomes a rental. Keep in mind owning rentals isn't for everyone. Might be worth doing some soul searching to make sure that is the direction you guys want to go.

Many property management softwares do this.  Appfolio, Rentvine, and Buildium are all popular.  Depending on how many properties you have that may be overkill. There are other small softwares that cost a bit less.  They won't be as automated though. 

I'm not in Pennsylvania but I use a site called Petscreening.com.  They do all of that for me.  I can't imagine they would exclude PA.  Either they get approved through the website, or they have to pay the fees.