Help me grow my portfolio

[Steve S.]

I typically try to buy houses that have cash on cash return of at least 10%. I own a couple in that range and a couple in the 15-20% range.

I'm typicalliy buying properties between $100,000 - $130,000.

I've not put more than say $10,000 in property improvement into any rental property, but as such, it's not really adding a whole lot of value to the property. I don't buy for appreciation, although that is always a nice bonus but I always buy for cash flow (so far in the 10-20% range).

Given that, each house typically has 20-25% down.

Closing costs are typically about $5,000.

All in, for each property, I'm having to to write a check for $25,000-$40,000.

From there, I put a renter in it and bam I'm cash flowing.

I put the properties on 30 year notes and then try to pay them off in about 7 years or so with the profits.


Is there any way to scale doing this? What I've been able to tell, most people trying to scale are buying properties that are very distressed, fixing them up, re-appraising them at a significantly higher value than the purchase price and then doing a cash out re-fi to put more mney in their pocket than they put into it to fund the next deal. Then they either sell the property or rent it out to keep cash lowing.

Is there any other way to scale doign what I've been doing or is the above paragraph really the only way to do it (other than waiting 7+ years to pay the property down and then have it fill up your accounts with a renting paid off house.?

Thanks!