First Rental House, First Step In Financing

[Drew DeSousa]

Happy Thanksgiving BP Forums!

My wife and I have been researching into real estate investing the past year or so and are ready to pull the trigger and buy our first investment!

We are looking at a buy and hold duplex or triplex.  Because this is our first investment property, we will likely be using a conventional mortgage with 20-25% down.  My question is: What do we need to have lined up from a financing perspective and what do those steps look like in order to move quickly on a deal when we find one?   I assume we should go to a bank to get pre-approval before we pursue a deal?  Do I call many different banks to get pre-approval and if so how many?    Would love to hear from someone what those financing steps looked like on their first couple investment properties with a conventional loan.

If there is a blog post on this that I missed I apologize but most of the posts I've read have to do with the different finance options or steps for a hand money loan, not the steps to get a conventional loan for an investment property

Thanks in advance!

Drew

[Christopher Brainard]

@Drew DeSousa

Hi Drew and welcome to BP!

You're unlikely to find much about doing a conventional loan because they're pretty boring :) All you need to do is call around and find out what types of rates and fees the banks around you are charging and choose one that you like. Once you select one, speak with the loan officer and get him the documents he needs to do the pre-approval. You'll get a letter and you're pretty much set. They'll still need to underwrite the loan when you find a specific house, but that's about all there is to it.

-Christopher