Early Investing Questions

[Donovan Magney]

Hi all, im a Graduate student looking into getting into real estate investing soon, and I have a few questions and am curious to hear what other peoples thoughts are.

1. Down Payments

How do you guys determine what you want to pay for a down payment? Of course you may have a minimum required (20% for conventional for example), but say you have a VA loan and can go all the way to 0?

Some things I've thought of already
-Lower down payment means higher monthly payment (maybe the income can still cover this?)
-Lower down payment means higher interest
-Lower payment means less money locked up in the mortgage, which can in turn can be used for other things (like more investments or renovations)

-Equity can build quicker (in appreciating market) with less down. This one I came across online so I'm not super informed about it

I'm thinking one route can be utilizing the low down payment on pure rental properties (especially early on in investing) as they will have a higher cash flow than in a place I house hack, which would require a higher down payment due to less rental income. Any other thoughts?

2. Finding Deals

As a college student, I am not able to get a loan easily due to lack of income. The most realistic way for me to get into investing at the moment would of course doing the legwork of finding deals and partnering with people who have the money. For finding deals, there's of course the traditional mailers, cold calls, email spam, and I suspect that these will always have to be included to some extent, but what are some more untraditional methods you guys have used (success or failure!)?

3. Other ways to invest while in college

What are some other ways you guys suggest I can get involved in investing, giving the limited funds and somewhat limited time constraints from someone in college?

Thanks!