All Forum Posts by: Tom Rolph

My girlfriend and I at the time had a new home built at 22. We just jumped in! Pain in the but to deal with the builder and wait for the endless delays but I am super happy we did it. You will be way ahead of your peers and that is OK! Someone has to get ahead first and it might as well be you. The one thing that I wish we would have done differently was to get a better deal. I am currently helping my 22 YO daughter find a place to buy. I am trying to talk her into buying a 4-plex as her first purchase. Look around and see if you can find a good deal on a 4-plex. You very well may be able to find one that will pay for itself while you live in one of the units free. Find a good lender to work with you to find out what you will qualify for.

You say "we". Are you working with a partner? If the deal is as good as you say, you have several options:

(1) Wholesale the deal off to someone else for quick cash

Partner up with an experienced local investor and watch and learn

Present the deal to a private lender, credit union or local portfolio lender

Rack you brain and make a list of who you know 

Lots of questions here so I am only going to tackle a few of them. Talk to your lender about how you can scale up. They will know your credit, the local market and the loan products available.

To meet the owner occupancy rules, the FHA requires that you live in the property as your primary residence for at least 12 months after the loan closes. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has been known to spot check FHA borrowers to make sure that they are observing the occupancy rule.

This means, in theory, you could buy another multi-family property (4 or under units for FHA loans) every year on a new FHA loan as long as you moved into it.

Make sure you spend some time soaking up all of the resources available on this sight. My dad used to say a smart man learns from his mistakes buy a wise man learns from others mistakes. A LOT of folks on this site share what they "learned" the hard way and you can save yourself enourouse time, stress and money by reading, watching and listening to all that you can. 

Have him put together the estimated cost sheet for you. I have done a streamline refi and it was pretty easy but it still has fees associated with it. Make sure to calculate out how long it will take to hit your break-even when you take into consideration the fees associated with the loan. If this is a long term hold, a low interest rate is great. also concider the impact of the FHA PMI. Will you get credit or a refund for the upfront portion of you FHA PMI? Remember that you will probably want to refi as soon as you get to 75-78% LTV to eliminate the PMI as long as the rates have not gone up so much by then that it doesn't pencil out.

You are on the right track. Listen to the BP podcasts on your commute because I KNOW that is a chunk of time! Make sure you find a Podcast player that allows you to speed up the playback. I listen as fast as I can understand so my mind does not wonder. I am totally focused on the topic and it sticks with me. You can speed up Youtube playback as well.

Go to local REAPS meetings, it is the local investment club here. Take an inventory of what you know and understand and what you want to learn more about. That will give everyone a little better idea where to point you. 

Have you already set up a self-directed IRA or self-directed 401K? That is the first step in your journey. I have done a lot of private money lending and investing in RE via self-directed retirement funds. I have also borrowed a hefty sum of retirement funds from others over the years. If you have not set-up yet, the 401k is the way to go if you will every buy RE in your retirement account. It allows you to borrow money to make use of leverage in your retirement account without additional taxes. You Definatly need to be well educated in the self-directed world before moving forward.