New investor from northern New Jersey

[John Trommelen]

Hello all this is my first post on Bigger Pockets. Myself and a friend are looking to get into real estate investing, specifically buy and hold or flipping, and we've been doing our due diligence over the past few months listening to podcasts, reading books, etc. We finally got to the point that we felt comfortable enough to speak to a mortgage lender. The mortgage lender told us that for a single family home we need 20% down and for a multi (2-4) family we need 25% down. I know private investors and hard money are options but I was wondering how others got started if those are in fact the rules? The market here is relatively expensive, we both have pretty good jobs, but would like to avoid using our entire savings to get this off the ground. Living in the investment properties for both of us aren't an option since we both have families and can't pick them up and move, so FHA loans I was told will not work for us. Any and all advice and/or criticism is welcome. Thanks in advance.