I tried opening an equity line on my 4 bedroom san diego house and US Bank told me I could not because this house is a rental property. Is this true?
Does this mean I cannot refinance the house also because it is a rental property?
That is true…FOR THAT BANK!!!
You can refi, cash out refi (in the middle of one now), and take a Line of Credit…you just need the right bank and the right amnount of equity!
It’s harder to do than on your own home, but it’s ‘do-able’…
Keith
Not sure how hard it is to get REFI and HELOC on rental properties in CA but I do it on all my properties here in AZ. I use Wells Fargo and Washington Mutual among many other banks. They are more than happy to give out loans with very low closing costs. In some cases (i.e. Wells Fargo), it didn’t cost me anything to get a HELOC on a rental since I already an account with them.
Keep shopping :
We refi our properties after rehab – always pulling 80% ARV to avoid PMI and to make sure we are in a postive cashflow situation.
I like the equity line idea for the remaining equity – thanks Keith!
And, watch out make sure you have a decent mortgage broker. We just got through dealing with one who I actually told on the phone not to show up at the table for closing. The stupid idiot, said, “No, that’s OK, I’ll be there.” I had to repeat – “You don’t get it, if you show up I will hurt your feelings and embarrass you.” I’ve NEVER run across someone so stupid – I’m not sure how he got his license (this is what we get for going through a ‘friend of a friend’). My husband and I were actually on our way to the first closing when he received a call that the lender couldn’t loan us the money because they just figured out it was a no-season cash-out loan. Like O-M-G we were to sign papers in 10 minutes! As far as we knew, everything was just great – because that is what this dolt told us. All the inquiries to our credit while this idiot found another lender for us, brought down our scores. And, when we closed, there were the charges for insurance and the appraisal – BOTH of which we paid for prior to closing because of his first screw up.
I do LOVE this business – I truly do. Life would be so boring without all this stuff.
Take care!