How to afford down payments on investment properties

[Henry Van Eijk]

Hi,

I am new here and learning but my question is how do people typically come up with a down payment. If you need 20% down for an investment property, that can be a lot of money. Do people typically use equity (HELOC) from other homes they own if the value has gone up a lot. What percent increase would a home have to go up in value for someone to do this? Or how much equity would someone have to have in a home to do this? That seems like it can be risky but is this common? If people decide to save for a down payment, do they keep money in a savings account or do people typically invest that money. If you need a 100k down payment on a 500k house, and it takes you multiple years to save up for that and you put your money in a savings account, your money will not grow (think of inflation) so would it technically be better to invest it in stocks or bonds in a non retirement account (something that you can liquidate very easily). It baffles me that some people are able to buy so many investment properties if you need around 20-25% for every down payment on every house. How do people acquire so many homes so quickly? Thank you.