All Forum Posts by: Kiwi Mills

@Derrick E. Thanks for the post glad to hear others have done this also.  I've been burned like maybe 1 outta 6-7 times I allowed this and I was also told I was making a poor decision, but like you and others stated good option for some scenarios.

Hey all, look forwarding to meeting you.  HIt a snag and leaving KC soon so I'll be there around 6:30 pm .Hope I don't miss too many of you :)

@Joe Villeneuve"Can I hear an "AMEN" from the back row?"

You made me spit out my water. 

@Robert Collins Like they mentioned HELOC or those checks credit cards mail you for 0% interest. I haven't seen many speak about it , but when I first started I had a CD [ Certificate of deposit ] that I could break in case of an emergency. Returns are so low I imagine most don't do that now, but can never be too many baskets right. The HELOC I'd be using so the CD being a pain and losing some interest stopped from using. Think the CD also helped couple of my first deals with conventional loans (safety net) but that could just be in my head.

Hey Aakash,

Do you have allot of other credit card debt? Allot of us are still paying off student loans, but think Debt to Income (DTI) Ratio is more important than just a large student loans. Was going to post a link here, but there are several big banks DTI calculators you can use to check. All debt isn't bad debt :) my 2 cents

@Account Closed Love the info This is my favorite post !   To think I was originally going to pile on and complain how my house is a "townhome" so its valued way under houses with less Bedrooms or Sq. Ft

Learned allot thank you all for the post!

Nice website,

My fav part is the "

The good news is that your credit card rewards and other benefits often offset the fee.

Hahaha that is good I didn't even think about that.

Oh looks like "Appendix A" under  3.3 Restricted Activities has some terms you may need to check out.

@Burdette K Tatum Jr How much is the property in question?  Reason I ask is when I started and even now some properties or deals I find are so cheap or low that it isn't worth their time or they have minimum limits like 30-40k.

Saw one for 10k and another for 20k that I would have snapped up if I wasn't in the middle of moving.

I started the same way and If I had it to do over again I would have started with a flip or two. Rent for 1st property collects slowly and that is not including tenant issues etc. Also by flipping or rehabbing you learn more what to look out and my opinion is you learn faster what you like and don't like or what you can deal with and what you can't.

@Lucas Austin Great advise given above , not allot I can add

@Robin Morales   Totally Agree with Paul and Lien   Pre-approval letter isn't worth a whole lot

For both I'd start with your local banker that you have checking/savings/ credit cards with. Each bank differs of course but two of mine will give me a quick estimate without doing a hard pull of my credit. ( Since I have relationships with them their terms say they can technically pull soft reports whenever they want.) Think of it like this, it is in their best interest to make sure you didn't tap all available lines of credit / miss payments at other places which would let them know to raise your interest rates or your a higher risk now. 

Also there are several calculators online you can use at most big banks to see generic what payment would be or what you afford. (what they will lend and payments) I was speaking to a friend about this just yesterday, I advised them to look at their own finances make a budget and compare to what they are paying for rent and add in bad scenarios like busted pipes, sewer, etc and how much savings they have. IE if you lost job could you cover rent/mortgage for 3-6 months. I know allot of us are into REI and business so budgets are simple for us, however allot of people don't even a standard household budget. I'd start there.

Have a little more I was going to add , but this is already getting long :)

Make sure to have a backup contractor as well. They will provide you with a list of Approved contractors in your area, to help the process. Maximum rehab for 203k Streamlined is 35k for Standard it can go higher. 

First time I did this my first contractor flaked and it delayed the process finding another. Since I couldn't just use any GC I knew and had to find a licensed/approved one. As Damian stated allot of contractors know it is guaranteed money , but some didn't like the strict labor vs material accounting, but it is nice and in a way protects you. 

Think there are some examples of how the bids need to be which I loved the format of, If I find the one I had I"ll send it to you

@Chris Teti

I'd be interested if you can PM me the information regarding unsecured lines of credit.