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Yes, a person can have more than one second home, although qualifying for the second second home is a little trickier than the first because you have to prove to the lender that it is not an investment property. A likely situation where a single individual will own two second homes is when their profession requires their travelling across the country for work. Perhaps they live in UTAH, but work takes them regularly to CALIFORNIA and NEW YORK. In this situation having two second homes, one in CA, the other in NY, which you reside in while working in those States is completely acceptable. The proof in this situation is the nature of your occupation.
If looking to buy a second second home I would make sure you have the “proof” of this designation in place and ready to provide to the underwriter with your initial loan submission. It is always better to address issues such as this one prematurely than to try to skate by without anyone noticing. Put together letters of explanation if needs be, just make sure it is addressed immediately. It is after all much better to hear that an underwriter will not accept the home as a second property early in the process than to get half way through the purcahse and find out it is not going to work out. Your goal should be to address and clear this second home nuance immediately.
I am assuming that you are talking about multiple properties and not about multiple loans on one property. You can have more than one second home, you could have a ski house in the mountains and a beach house at the shore or as mentioned by another contributor, you can have a condo in NYC, a primary residence in Utah and a lake house in California. The transaction has to make sense. Either the borrower has to explain why they need a ‘second home’ condo in NYC (for business reasons) or the property has to be in a second home environment, lake, mountains or shore… Additionally an underwriter will take a look at a map to determine if the second home property is in a resort or vacation area and if it is far enough away from the primary residence to make sense.
It is important today to note that we are required to provide tax transcripts on ALL loans, so if it appears that you are collecting rent on one of these properties the property will be re-classified as an investment property which come with higher rates and greater underwriting restrictions. If you are purchasing a second home today and plan to rent it out seasonally in the future, you will be prohibited from refinancing this as a second home, because the tax transcripts don’t lie. Keep that fact in mind.
A homeowner can have (theoretically) any number of mortgages against his home, but every loan will have a “priority” which means only 1 loan can be in second lien priority. If there are 3 loans, for example, one will be a first mortgage, one a second mortgage, and one a third mortgage. The question you are probably asking is whether there can be more than one “subordinate” mortgage, and the answer is yes. But all mortgages that are subordinate to the first mortgage still have to have a specific lien priority. The lien priority of a particular mortgage is determined as of the date the money is borrowed and the date the mortgage is signed (and in the case of two mortgages signed the same date, the date the mortgages are recorded in the land records).
Can a person have two or more second home loans?