All Forum Posts by: Sudhanshu Singha

@Nitin John Abraham Have you been calling the smaller community banks? You will have better luck with them than the larger banks. 

@Maxwell H Davis Search for smaller community banks and ask them if they are a portfolio lender. If they are a portfolio lender then they will not have an issue with DTI ratios since they look at each property on an individual basis and will be more concerned with the DCR(Debt Coverage Ratio) of the property you intend to purchase or refinance. The downsides of portfolio lending is that most likely the interest rates will be higher(1% or more) than conventional loans and that the interest rate will be adjustable rather than fixed.

@Navtej Singh Saini It should not be anymore difficult to rent a 4BR home over a 3BR home. What may be difficult is finding a lot of comps for what a 4BR home should rent for if your property is located in an area when most homes are owner-occupied rather than rented. The premium you ask to rent a 4 BR over the market rate for a 3BR will determine how long it takes for you rent your home. 

I actually think you will have a easier time managing your home since you will most likely be able to attract higher income tenants who will want to stay in your home for a longer period of time(2+years). You should also have an easier time collecting rent and the tenant should maintain the home well. 

@Anthony Green I use Citizens Bank & Trust and they they do not have a minimum loan amount. I'm not sure if they changed their policies due to Covid-19 though.  

@Heather Collins You should seek advice from a local lawyer who is familiar with California eviction laws about this issue. I don't have any first hand experience but I believe in Virginia that if a tenant overstays their lease then they are still covered by the eviction moratorium and you will need to file a case for eviction once the moratorium is over.

The laws may be different in California and that is why you should speak with a local lawyer but if she overstays her lease and still pays rent then you are in better situation than others. Regardless you should inform the person who was supposed to move in on Monday so they can plan accordingly. The last thing you want is that person to show up on Monday and get into a argument/fight with the current tenant.

@Michael A. There is some good news for you! The article below states that eviction hearings will resume on June 29th and that the city of Richmond will spend $6 million for rental assistance. At least once the hearings get started the backlog will start to get smaller since the last thing a landlord wants to happen is for evictions to finally get started and then find out his rescheduled court date is 5-6 months away due to a backlog in eviction cases.  

With the type of tenant you have it would probably make sense to just take your losses and evict as soon as possible instead of trying to recoup some of your losses with the rental assistance mentioned in the article. The reason I say this is because most likely there is going to be some strings attached to the rental assistance money preventing you from evicting your tenant in the future. 

https://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/virginias-supreme-court-lifts-freeze-on-evictions-stoney-pledges-cares-act-funds-to-address-issue

@Matthew Sprott Did the tenants give you a new security deposit when they signed the new 12 month lease or did the previous owner give you the tenants original security deposit. I have a feeling that if it is the latter then the tenants may not of been paying rent for a while and the previous owner decided to sell the property instead of waiting for the eviction process to resume. If that is the case then they will just ignore your repayment plan and you will be stuck until evictions resume. 

@Lori N. The Reston/Herndon area has seen a lot of appreciation in the past few years and most likely will also see more in the future due to tech companies moving in or expanding their offices. Just over the last year Google/Facebook/Microsoft have either announced new offices or expansions in the Reston area. The biggest expansion being Microsoft which announced 1500 new employees coming in summer of 2021.  

The issue you will run into is the 400k budget. You will be able to find a condo for that price but it is going to be much harder to find a townhouse in the Reston or Herndon for that price. I have seen a few for that price but its not common and you will have multiple bidders if you do.

Also one thing to take note of is that even though Maryland may currently be more tenant friendly than Virginia right now that may not be the case in the future. The Virginia Governor and both legislative bodies of the state government are now under the same political party and if they want to make Virginia more tenant friendly it will not take as much effort as it would of in the past.    

@Michael Veal  If you go to the public website of jurisdiction of the home you are interested in you should be able to find find the property tax rate of that jurisdiction and the assessed value of the home. Since the rate and assessed value will probably not be on the same page you will need find them individually and then multiply the rate(Convert into percentage if displayed in another form) by the assessed value to come up with the property tax of the home. 

The rate might not be in percentage form and instead it could be something like the rate $1.20 for every $100 in assessed value and lets say the assessed value of your home is 100k. If it given like that just convert the $1.20 dollar value into in a percentage or a percentage in decimal form. For the example above your rate would be ($1.2/$100)=.012 or 1.2%. Once you get the rate(decimal or percentage form) all you need to do is multiply it by the assessed value for any home in the same jurisdiction to come up with the property taxes for that home. For the example above it would be $100,000 x 1.2% = $1,200.  

It's a well written article but it did not mention anything about the weekly $600 unemployment bonus that people were eligible to receive if they got laid off from their job. The weekly bonus is basically rental assistance and actually helps cover a vast majority or even all of a low income or middle income family's housing cost in many areas.  I do think many more of the smaller landlords will start feeling the pressure from the eviction moratorium once the weekly unemployment bonus comes to an end.