All Forum Posts by: Tim Crosby

@Travis Henry no, we haven't done any work on the property. It was in pretty good shape when we bought it, in fact, that's why we bought it, because it was a less risky investment! Being that I've only been there a year, I'm pretty certain there's little equity.

However, I did just think of something else.. my broker and I spoke about 6 months ago just to discuss options and my wife was pregnant at the time. After looking more into this, I'm wondering if I can get some sort of deal for that considering we need more space?

Really, I'm most interested in getting that down payment number down. The other requirements of the FHA loan (central air, etc.) are already requirements in my mind. 5% is do-able for me, but 3.5% just sounds SO much better!! Anyway I can get that down is awesome!

So it's been almost a year since I bought my first property. I've been counting the days in anticipation of this event and I'm ready to start looking at a second property, or so I thought before talking to my broker..

Originally, the plan was to finance tree first duplex with an FHA loan, live in one side for a year and then look for another duplex afterwards, finance that with a similar loan, live there for one year, rinse and repeat, etc.

I knew that I'd eventually have to find another way to finance these deals, but I didn't think it would be before buying my second property!

According to my current broker 1) you can NOT have more than 1 FHA loan at a time. 2) Being that this is the second property for me, the terms wouldn't be that much different from a conventional loan anyways. 3) Being that a conventional loan is my best option and I do plan to live in the new home, if I want another duplex I would need 15% down, but if I want a single-family home, I only need 5%.

Maybe this person is 100% correct and this is the best option for me. Maybe they just don't have access to better deals. Maybe they're inexperienced in this area of financing and just don't know. I certainly don't know.

What do you think? Is this information accurate? Is there something else I should be asking? Any advice is appreciated!

Ugh. Formatting posts on the mobile app is terrible. Not sure who to tag, but really looking forward to the day when this is fixed!

So, my wife and I bought our first duplex back in December of 2018. Took a while to find a descent place at a fair price, but we did it. It's nothing special, but the maintenance is low and the numbers work. With both sides rented, we can easily get $200 a month in cashflow. Again, nothing to brag about, but a solid purchase for our first rental home. We decided to house-hack with the FHA loan and understood at the time that we would have to stay there for at least one year. Well, my wife got pregnant while we were searching for homes and now we're both looking at everything and wondering if we should be looking for something more permanent for ourselves. The units are 2 bedroom, but only about 700sqft on either side. It's fine for now, but it's not ideal for the long term, yet here we are. The original plan was to buy 5 duplexes within 5 years and make a minimum of $1000 in cashflow before buying our house. Basically, using that money to pay for our home. We could still do that, but the closer this baby gets, the more I want to get settled faster. Am I worried too much about it? Do you think diverting from the plan will delay things? I'm talking to a lender on Friday, but would like some advice from those with more experience. What are my options here? Am I really stuck in this house for a year, or is there another way out I'm not seeing? Right now I'm projecting 6 months before I can start looking at houses again, but even if I have the money, what do I do about this FHA? Would it be wise to buy a more permanent home for the family and keep the rental as is? Or should I just stick it out and go as originally planned? I think the original plan is solid and easily obtainable, particularly considering I have a descent job and homes are fairly inexpensive in my area. What would you do? Are there other things I should be taking into consideration? Let me know what you think.

Originally posted by @Lance Lvovsky:

@Tim Crosby Welcome to BP! A great environment to learn all about real estate investing. Do not hesitate to reach out with questions!

Hey! You're actually pretty close to me. Says you're a CPA too?? Very interesting. I'm definitely interested to talk to someone about that sort of stuff. I'm getting ready to buy my first property - I've made several offers already, so it's just a matter of time now! Want to make sure I'm taking full advantage of the tax benefits. Specifically right now, I'm super curious about the LLC and whether it makes more sense to do that now or later. I know, it all depends.. but that's why I want to talk to someone. Anyways, thanks for reading the terribly formatted post! Sent you a request on here. Hopefully we can chat soon about some of this!

Hello everyone!

So for the last few weeks or so, I've been looking at buying my first duplex. The original idea was to house-hack using an FHA loan in addition to a down payment assistance program offered in my area. We found a house that needed some work and thought this would be the perfect house, given our current situation.

While we were drafting the offer, we realized that the home didn't qualify for the FHA program for one reason or another. We thought that might still be okay, so we looked at other loan options and realized the only other way was for me to put down about $6,000 in total for closing costs, deposits, inspections and surveys. Now, before you say that I should have gotten the closing cost wrapped up into the loan amount... we couldn't do that.

This particular home was under the Fannie Mae Homepath program which limits the total amount of money you can have wrapped into the loan. The remainder was about $4,000 plus the normal costs incurred while going through the normal process - that's how we get to the total number of $6,000.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to pass on this particular house because I don't have the money to make the offer. I could get the money, but it will take time. I even tried withdrawing some credit from the Bank of Mom, but alas, the bank was tapped out and the best I could muster was about $2,000. This house has many offers on it already, so for me, it's just not an option. It's sad because I think it would've been an amazing deal, but it's over and we're moving on.

I say all this to try and give you an idea of how much time was spent working on this deal. Before we move on to the next property, I have some questions about the FHA requirements. What I don't want is to have happen is what happened here. After speaking to my broker, I've come to the conclusion that we need to stick within the parameters of the FHA program. I know some things about this, but not enough. For example, I know that we must have heating and cooling, even thouh we're in Florida. I also know that since we're looking at multi-family properties, they have to be under one roof. I looked at a property previously that had separate buildings, but that doesn't qualify. Beyond that, I don't know what else to look for. If anyone can expand on those parameters or point me in the right direction, that'd be great!!

Thanks in advance!
Tim

@Chace Fraser Thanks! I apologize for the terrible formatting. I spaced things out on the app while writing it, but apparently I did something wrong and seem to be unable to edit the post from the. Hopefully it wasn't too painful to read!

What's up peeps? Nothing too exciting to say here, just wanted to put my info out there for anyone who's looking for someone like me. I guess the best thing to do here is to describe who I am, what I want and what I'm doing. This is going to be a long one, so if you're interested, just know that I ramble a lot. I've always been a hard worker. I started work on my 16th birthday and since then, I haven't really stopped. I actually left my birthday party early to start my first day at McDonalds. I spent a lot of time working in fast food, restaurants, bars and pizza shops, but throughout the years, I've also dabbled in many other areas. I tried to get out of food a few times by doing retail work, but that was just really boring and unrewarding. I've worked with my mom's company doing digital marketing through web design and social media management. I worked for a tree trimming company for a little while, which led to me starting my own landscaping company. Running that, I was offered a few small construction projects like fence building, demolition and drywall hanging. Eventually I got to a point where I was basically working 3 jobs - running a landscaping business during the day, working in resturaunts at night and freelancing web work on the side. Then, in 2015 I decided to look into truck driving school and realized I could make a descent income with a lot less work and go to school basically for free. So, I sold my business to pay my bills for a month, quit all my jobs and spent 11 hours a day, 6 days a week for 3 weeks straight doing that! Since about March of 2015 I've worked for 4 different trucking companies. I started with 1 year OTR with my wife as a passenger before shifting into local jobs. I did a few delivery jobs for major companies, but eventually landed in the company where I am now. We moved to Texas for about 2 years and I did primarily drip and hook runs. That was nice! However, we eventually wanted to move back to Florida and I decided to transfer my job. Now, I do a bunch of different things. Sometimes I deliver flowers, sometimes it's furniture, other times I just run a quick drop and hook. It's always different, so it's more interesting, but it's also less stable. Then, about 3 weeks ago, I watched a video by Robert Kiyosaki talking about how the rich don't work for money. That sent me down the rabbit hole of investor real estate, where I eventually found Brandon talking about house-hacking and Bigger Pockets. Since then, I've started assembling my team. Right now, I've only got my broker and my realtor, but we've just made an offer on our first duplex and things look promising! I think my next steps are to find a CPA and attorney to help me structure everything, but that's why I'm here... to learn for myself as much as I can and to find out who I need to talk to and how to properly vet them. Thank you, Josh! Lol. So, as you might be able to tell, I've got a lot to say and a lot to learn. That said, I'm not one who likes to think and plan out a whole bunch. Whatever the opposite of analysis paralysis is.. that's more like me! I found a deal that I think will work great for me and I'm moving on it. If things go bad, I can always go back to driving trucks - not that I'm planning on stopping that anytime soon. Eventually I'd like to hit that freedom number, but I probably won't quit working right away. Trucking, especially at my current company, allows me to work as much or as little as I want, so for now, I'm keeping my foot on the pedal! I'll consider slowing down much later. Anyways, that's a bit about me. Not sure how I can help others here, but definitely interested in meeting other people near me who are doing the same kind of thing. I don't know much yet, but I work hard and get the job done, so I'm sure I can do this. As the saying goes, "There's nothing to it, but to do it!" Good luck everyone! Talk to you soon.

@Knifie Burks worked for me!!

@Michael Sato yes. My laptop does allow for touch screen. I didn't try using it that way, but the device does allow for that.