Canadian Looking For US Financing

[Eric Rosendale]

Hello! I am a new Canadian investor looking to run some BRRRR deals in the Cleveland Ohio area. I have chosen to invest in the US because I live in Toronto which is a notoriously unaffordable area with an atrocious cap rate and the rest of Canada doesn't fare particularly well either. I have heard of many Canadian investors that have become very successful investing in US real estate. In terms of my target area I have chosen Cleveland, Ohio because the cap rates are very good, starting costs are low, and growth potential is high.

I have approx 70k USD as starting capital and my plan is to find a distressed property in the Cleveland area, fix it up, rent it, then do a cash out refinance to get back most of my investment so I can repeat this process.

I will be setting up a corporation structure soon, and in the meantime I am going to be contacting lenders for pre-approvals, finding a property manager, as well as agents and wholesalers to help me find properties.

Does anyone have recommendation for lenders I can look into? I am looking for properties between the $40-150K range. I am also deciding between making the purchase with cash, or an initial mortgage. My reason to prefer cash is that I won't have to find a mortgage with no pre-payment penalties, and I think it will just make the refinance process simpler. If this worry is unfounded, I can increase my purchase price. 

One thing that I have heard is that I will have trouble finding a lender that will provide a mortgage for less than $100K. If this is the case I will have to buy a more expensive property anyway and rely on a cash-out refinance to get most of my capital back. I may even need a partner if I can't find an adequate first mortgage.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated, thank you!