Dream Beginnings

[Stu Johnson]

Hello folks it's been a while. I just need some advise on how to start real estate portfolio but let me explain my idea. Earlier this week I was going to my Arizona State University class in real estate investments and the professor had brought up the topic on how to start a portfolio of investments, particularly in residential property. He stated something that made me do a double take and I've been scratching my head on it ever since. He said try to buy your dream home first, build equity, then use that to begin an real estate investment portfolio. I particularly came with a dream home that I had in mind that I would love to spend forever in. http://www.richmondamerican.com/Arizona/Phoenix-new-homes/Queen-Creek/La-Jara-Farms/Robert/ here is the link of my dream home and model. It's a big house on a one acre back yard lot just on the outside of Mesa-Gilbert area. Development is going that way so I know appreciation on this lot is only going to go up making it harder on me. Anyways the professor said to buy your big house, get equity and then use it to buy rental properties. My plan about it is to buy this house with 20%+ down payment, then live in it for a while. After that, find a lender that will allow 100% equity line of credit/loan to purchase smaller rental properties. Currently, I have about 10k in savings but I need 90k more to go....(yikes) and I plan on saving some more after that just for reserves. I'm currently earning a wage of 31k a year but it's a night job and I have lots of time in the mornings to do other projects to help reach this goal. Pretty soon I might be getting a promo after I graduate this year making 50-60k My only questions are: Has anyone bought their dream house as their first house and manifested their equity in their house to build their investment portfolio? What do lenders look at when you're applying for an equity line of credit? I am hoping to buy the dream home and immediately manifest the 20% equity I bought the dream home with to purchase smaller rental properties. Now what do you think?