Real Estate Forum

Paying a (Rocket) serviced Mortgage through a Bilt.com Credit Card?

I **heard about the possibility of paying a mortgage with a rewards earning credit card** on a (fairly) recent episode of ChooseFI (see link below)! **My home mortgage is serviced through Rocket Mortgage** and in talking to Rocket Mortgage (live agent) they said they "don't accept credit cards" for mortgage payments. HOWEVER, under the hood, it SEEMS like the way Bilt works is that they directly "pay" your mortgage but then your credit card payments (to Bilt) effectively pays them back (do I hav...

vagrant1 254 XP

2 weeks ago 8 Share

1% Rule

Hi everyone! I am in a bit of a pickle brought on entirely from overthinking… I think. I have a mortgage on a home that is close to 100 miles away from where I work (a minimum 3 hour commute). My girlfriend and I are seriously talking about me moving in with her, she lives much, much closer to where I work. I would very much like to include real estate in my portfolio and I am thinking about renting out my house. As of right now the 1% Rule is a little out of reach for me. My current mortgage is...

Rootfifth 390 XP

1 month ago 8 Share

Can I get to FIRE? Debt, mortgage, home selling process

Hello everyone. Please share your thoughts. I'm trying to be completely debt free, but I can't do so unless I sell my house. The mortgage is affordable, which is why I bought it, but I never had any intent on staying here. The value has increased. The problem is that I'm struggling with deciding on the selling process. I prefer to sell below value for a cash offer to avoid the full selling process (showing my home to a bunch of strangers who may or may not have a pre-approval or the paperwork to...

MeloJ 248 XP

2 months ago 11 Share

Best Way To Set Money Aside For Down Payments

What is the recommendation for where to put money for down payments and how much do you keep in cash? I’m wanting to slowly accumulate rental properties (maybe one a year). If my buy box is $200,000 homes and I need $50,000 for a down payment and closing costs, should I keep $50,000 in a high yield savings account and then sell stocks to replenish it when I buy a home? Should I keep a portion of my portfolio in a risk parity allocation and use that to replenish the cash or keep my portfolio grow...

Borsak 35 XP

2 months ago 5 Share

Is refinancing the right move?

We currently have a 15-year mortgage at 5.125% and looking to start our early retirement in a few months which means we won’t have a w-2 income soon. We want to refinance to a 30-year to lower our monthly payment and we plan to rent out our house during this next phase of early retirement, probably for a couple of years. How low would the rates have to be for us to trigger the refinancing? We are also under a tight timeline since we are planning to quit our jobs in a few months.

Gabbywang 88 XP

2 months ago 3 Share

Rent my home vs sell? Taxes and long term strategy

I’m looking to find some help in understanding what options and the long term tax implications for what I’m considering. I’ve found a home that could accommodate my family and my 79 yr old mother comfortably. My mother and I both own our homes and there are significant increases on their value… maybe 500k for her and possibly 1.25M+ for me. Her house is in a trust and I am the beneficiary. I was considering renting the homes put, they are on large acreage and are very nice. We would like to have...

JeanniBB 205 XP

2 months ago 3 Share

Second house to share with aging parents?

My parents currently live in another state in a fairly remote area (90 minutes from nearest town). As they get older I can see they are struggling driving back and forth to town for their medical appointments and shopping trips. I had this idea of getting a 2nd house in town they could transition to while keeping their rural home (my dad is very attached to it). My initial idea is I could use the new house during the summers when I visit and they could stay there in the very cold winters so they...

newfi25 375 XP

2 months ago 1 Share

Bonus Depreciation + Roth Conversions

Have a lot of assets sitting in pretax accounts? Own rental property? Here's a strategy to move massive funds into your post tax accounts without getting a massive tax bill! This is a niche strategy but a powerful one I've been doing the last few years. Part of the 2017 TCJA tax revision included bonus depreciation allowing you to take the majority of your depreciation in one year instead of spread out over 27.5 years and this was made permanent with the OBBBA last year. For me, depreciation on...

Ian Broadie 71 XP

2 months ago 0 Share

How Do Asset-Backed Mortgages Work?

How do asset-backed mortgages (/other lending) work? This seems like it might be a big deal for people who are some flavor of FI, but I don't remember having heard anybody talk about it. Like, I consider myself "BarristaFI," so I'm still making *some* money, but nobody would approve me for a new car loan from it, never mind a mortgage. I'd hate to cash my investments out to buy a house in cash, because I wouldn't want that large a percentage of my net worth to be in my primary residence when I d...

lindsay 1,097 XP

3 months ago 4 Share

Renting to family

Sorry I double posted- I’m experiencing some glitching with my phone. To get to the point- Should I rent my house to family?? I do want to rent my house, but I’m reminded of the adage, “don’t do business with family”. My brother asked if I’d be ok with him and his partner renting my house. If I agree I intend to keep all proper documentation regarding agreements and finances. What are your thoughts??

Rootfifth 390 XP

4 months ago 5 Share

Lenders that look at retirement assets for inv property HELOC

Long-time podcast listener, first post! Does anyone have experience with qualifying for a HELOC associated with an investment property that was able to use retirement accounts in the debt-to-income calculation? Don't want to waste time and then not qualify at the end of the process (happened last year). Hoping to find a couple lenders that others have had success with Asset Backed Qualification. I have enough Roth-basis funds to qualify if included in the income calc. Found some lenders online b...

Chris_W

5 months ago 4 Share

best path to build new garage

Hey all, Not sure if this is the best place to ask. We want to build a 3-car garage with a guest suite and gym off the back. I am trying to id the best path to borrow about $100k. We have PLENTY of equity in the home (primary res) and great credit. However, I am seeing these HELOCs at 6.75% interest. I tried to find anything at a fixed-rate 10-year borrow, but am at a loss. Advice welcome.

Kim Case 154 XP

6 months ago 2 Share

Sell Home and Rent?

Hi everyone! Based on my own personal experience and reading others’ financial analyses of renting versus buying, I believe there are circumstances in which it makes more sense to rent than buy, and my husband and I don’t believe our current house will be our long-term home, so I’m trying to figure out if it makes sense financially to go ahead and sell now and start renting if that’s going to save us money over the long term. Does anyone have suggestions on how to do the math for this? I’m curre...

mdhershberger32 95 XP

6 months ago 15 Share

Put minimum down on primary residence if you have a 20% down payment?

I recently ran across this idea, and wanted to get some input if people have tried this. We have 20% cash for a down payment, don't currently own a house and are looking to purchase. This idea is to make the minimum down payment of 3.5% or 5% (which theoretically gets you a better interest rate), close, then after some time period pay the rest of the 15% cash towards the loan, and then recast the loan and keep the lower interest rate. This strategy seems to assume a few things (interest rate is...

AnotherMechEngr 318 XP

8 months ago 11 Share

Bi-Weekly Mortgage Payments: Worth It?

Hi all, I wanted to see if anyone in the FI community is currently paying their mortgage in bi-weekly installments vs the traditional once per month. I was recently reviewing my mortgage (30 yr and my savings calculator tool indicated I could save $30k in interest payments over the life of the mortgage and reduce my payoff time by 52 months by switching to b-weekly payments. While this sounds like a good deal, I wanted to see if there are any potential pitfalls.

mattburtonme 105 XP

8 months ago 12 Share

Giving property

Hello! My father in law is going to sell his rental condo and give the money to his two sons. I feel like I heard something about an efficient way to do this but I cannot find it now. He'll have capital gains on it, the property has about doubled in value and he has not lived there for two years. Can someone gift a property to their kids and then they can sell it? Or would it be the same tax for him to sell it and then give them the money? He is going to talk to a tax advisor but is still figuri...

vtorrr 12 XP

8 months ago 3 Share

How to calculate FI when Real Estate and Rentals are part of your portfolio

Good Morning. I recently found the group and podcast and really enjoying it!! I am trying to figure out the basics on how to calculate rentals into the equation. I typically pull 80% of my equity out every 5 years to reinvest, while maintaiing a small profit on my rentals, and keeping a small basement apt for myself. I have equity in these rentals, and other land, but don't quite know how to calculate these into a simple 4% FI equation. If there is an episode that I could listen to, or any simpl...

Anonymous

9 months ago 7 Share

Home equity for second property

We have about $425K equity on a $625K home that we plan to stay in for decades (with a sub 3% interest rate). Is there a downside to taking out a bunch of that equity to buy a second property for 300-350K? We could also contribute cash. If we rented the second home out, rent may be equal to the mortgage/taxes/insurance. But right now this equity is sitting in our primary residence doing nothing. Eventually one of our kids could move into it as we'll likely be providing financial or housing assis...

Sunset123 98 XP

9 months ago 7 Share

Fair sharing of estate among children after Real Estate deal

Looking for advice: I own a 5 bedroom home on many acres. Am considering selling it to one of my four children, who has 4 kids and needs a bigger home, and building an ADU (accessory dwelling unit) on the property for me. My son can't currently afford the full market price of my home and the property will be worth even more once the ADU is built. He has about half of its value in his current home. I will need funds to build the ADU out of some of the proceeds from a sale (maybe 1/4+ of the sale...

lanjokma 56 XP

10 months ago 6 Share

Real Estate Attorney

Hi everyone! Hope everyone is doing well!! After much thought and discussion I have decided to rent out my house! For context, my house is in Central California (Los Banos), I purchased it for $452k and currently owe about $396k. Mortgage is $2700 with 3.25% interest. Rent estimators have all been around $2100 to $3000 (the $3k includes the fact that it is newer construction, has solar panels, 3 car garage and a tankless water heater). A local property management company has estimated I’d get ar...

Rootfifth 390 XP

10 months ago 4 Share