Buying more rentals after my first purchase

[Geovany Espinoza]

Ill be closing on my first rental on Jan 28th. Ill be living there for a year then refinancing my va loan into a conventional to then rent it out. I hear investors only wanting to purchase a 1 property a year but then magically purchase 3 or more in that same year how do they do this ? How do they raise so much money to then purchase multiple properties ? Id like to expand my portfolio as fast as possible but how do investors do this ?

[Theresa Harris]

If you plan on  living there for a year, you can then turn it into a rental without refinancing it.  Unless you plan on doing a lot of renos which will increase the value of the home, I don't see the point of refinancing as it will cost you money and if you bought with 5% down and refinance to turn it into a rental, you may only be able to refinance for 80% of the value....ie you are not going to come out ahead.

You can't look at the number of rentals people have as they aren't all the same.  Even for single family homes, some people are buying in areas where they cost $400K and others in areas where they are $100K.  That means the cost to buy is very different.  It also depends on people's income and expenses as to how quickly they can save for the next down payment (and how much they can borrow from the bank).