Cash flow positive with 3.5% down?

[Tim Wheeler]

Hey everyone,

I'm new to real estate investing and my wife & I have started looking at multifamily properties in MA & RI that we will live in for at least a year in hopes to purchase a single family afterwards. The properties we're eyeing are move-in ready, but not all of them are newly renovated. We'd be willing to put some work into any of the homes that made sense.

Using tools such as the BP rental property calculator and Mashvisor, I'm only coming across properties that, with the minimum FHA down payment of 3.5%, will be cash flow positive after a number of years (lowest I've seen is 3 years, up to 15+ years which would likely be a no-go/red flag).

In today's market, is that something that's typical with this type of down payment? I'm inputting the general rules of thumb for vacancy, maintenance, etc. I just want to make sure we're not putting ourselves into a hole that we can't get out of on the first property in our portfolio.

Ideally we'd be in a solid cash flow position right away, but I'm unsure if that's realistic when putting the minimum 3.5% down.

Thanks in advance, and happy to provide more details.

Tim