2) Financing Deals & Dealing with Fake Influencers

Real Estate Investing with House Money

Real Estate is Easy

This week, we interviewed Jasmine Krnjetin from Jasmine mortgage team, which is a residential mortgage lending firm. They do mortgages for any type of one-to-four-unit properties. They’re based in Georgia, but do loans pretty much nationwide, except Alaska and New York. Jasmine has been in the mortgage business for over 20 years. Get this – the firm has closed over a billion dollars in mortgages to date. Throughout the interview, Jasmine’s passion for lending shines through. The first situation we discussed is whether you can have 2 mortgages in your name or not (spoiler: you can) and how that works. We also spoke about the different down payments available to real estate investors. Jasmine then dove deep into the debt-to-income ratio (DTI), what it is, why it matters, and how to change it. Credit card payments, car payments, and student loan payments affect it negatively. Income from your job and even anticipated rent affect the DTI ratio positively. Of course, we had to discuss house hacking, since that’s how Lauren, Tom, and Alan all started. Jasmine gave a bunch of different ways you can house hack (live in part of the property and rent the rest out). But DTI is not the only thing that limits you. You’re actually limited to 10 conventional loans, although I assume most people hit their DTI limit before then. Once you can no longer get conventional loans in your name, there are still ways to get financing. Jasmine recommends maxing out the conventional loans first, which is what we think at House Money Media as well. Jasmine then explains how down payments work for your first versus second homes, and emphasizes that if you’re getting owner occupied homes that you MUST move in. Naturally, I asked about how to get financing using short-term rental income.

Jasmine makes real estate easy by simply keeping every house she buys. She buys a new primary, moves out, keeps it and rents it out. She started 20 years ago and now has $5 million worth of real estate, even though she just started with a $100,000 home. I refer to this approach as “primary hacking.” Alan, for some reason, calls this “floater homing,” which Lauren and Tom hate. You decide what you think. Tom loved Jasmine’s point that you can use rents to help your DTI.

House Money Weekly

This week, we discussed House Money Weekly 104, about whether you should keep your day job or not. I put my two weeks’ notice in early June 2023, so this is apropos for me especially. Remember the DTI we talked about with Jasmine? It’s VERY important to have a job to get as many loans as possible. At House Money Media, we all agree with getting multiple loans in your name while you have a job. Alan is a fan of each property having a bill it’s responsible for. He wrote a book called House Fire, which is all about this approach. Basically, are your properties paying your bills or not? Ask yourself that question before you leave your job. My husband and I were covering our bills with real estate before I left my job. Alan’s final piece of advice to think about is make sure you let people know what you’re up to. You’re a real estate investor now, make sure people know about it.

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Teatime with Tom

Tom enjoys meeting people in real life that he’s met online. He did that recently, so he told us a little about that conversation. The topic was this: how do you know which “influencers” are legit versus those who aren’t? Basically, make sure they’re showing receipts. In the case of real estate influencers, make sure they’re still in the game. They’re still finding deals, they’re still buying, they’re still launching new projects, etc. I personally suggest scheduling time (for free or otherwise) with influencers you’re curious about, if they offer these options. Tom’s tip is to see if they’re responding to DMs and comments. I also recommend having a healthy dose of skepticism.

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Sponsored by: Jasmine Mortgage Team

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