Buy first house cash, refinance later?

[Jens Ohlsson]

Hi!

Me and my wife are just starting out in real estate investing. We have saved up some cash, basically enough for downpayments of 4 or 5 properties. How ever, getting started and finding good properties to invest in takes a bit of time, and we may need to adjust our strategy. At first we planed to invest the whole budget in the coming 6 months or so, but that just seems unrealistic at the moment. So instead of just having our savings in a bank account without any interest, we're considering buying our first property all cash instead of taking out a loan and then refinance later, when we need the money for other properties. This way we will "put the money to work" right away, and we will gain a few thousand dollars extra per year. Even if we're already pre-approved for a loan, it will also make the process a little easier, if we don't need to deal with a bank, at least not yet. 

What do you say? Is this a good idea? Or are there any significant downsides of doing the first investment all cash and refinance later, when we need the money? The kind of properties we're looking at for our first investment are all well-maintained houses in better neighborhoods that should be fine to finance with a loan, I should add.

[Jens Ohlsson]

Thanks you for you advice, Amanda! :) 

I haven't been online here for a while, but since I asked the question, we ended up buying a house in good condition, that don't need any rehab at all for the moment. The numbers are decent and it will give us a pretty good cashflow from day one. We will keep a close eye of the market and hopefully the market doesn't crash in the very near future, which could lock up part of our money for some time. 

We are going to keep the property for a long time, so we're not overly concerned about short term market trends. As long as we have a tenant we're fine, and we have a margin so we can afford a lower rent in case the market temporarily goes down. 

Right now we're looking for property managers in the Atlanta area - any advice?