I am looking into buying a townhouse either to flip or rent Now my question is, can I finance the property with a typical homebuyer loan(30,15 year loan) or is that not possible when you are an investor?
Also are townhouses good properties to try to make money off of?
You can get a 15 or 30 year loan to buy a townhouse if you qualify but qualifying has become harder especially for investment properties. You cannot get a “typical homebuyer loan” since “typical homebuyer loan” is usually restricted to owner occupied (not an investment property). Townhouse “can” be good to make money off of but, like any other property, you need to buy at the right price. Rule of thumb is the purchase price should be no more than 60% to 70% of market value minus any repair costs.
I have a few townhouse that work well as rentals. In my experience many tenants do not want the yard work associated with a single family home. Also, you can generally depreciate a larger percentage of the purchase price of a townhouse since the land is generally a smaller part of the purchase price and the land cannot be depreciated.