Help! Problems financing my real estate investments..

[Kenny Ye]

Hello fellow BPs,

So, here's the situation I'm running into and I want to see what your thoughts are and what other strategies you are doing to overcome the financing hurdles I'm facing, and I believe my situation is not unique:

Did a bunch of research and it seemed like most people agree that investment properties need to be held by an LLC to eliminate personal liabilities. Also, a lot of the things I read about leveraging in real estate is to buy it cash, pull the cash out via refinance, buy another one.....and kept doing the same thing to build your portfolio. Well, I just spoke to a few banks and and was told that they do not refi properties being held by LLC (despite the fact that it is free and clear). And it sound like I need to transfer the property to my personal name before I can even refi. Even if I do that, the only option I have in order to pull cash out is to do a 'Cash out refi', which will be at a higher interest rate and higher fees compared to just a regular investment refi (one with an existing loan in place). So I started exploring the HELOC route and found that most lenders do not offer HELOC for investment properties.....at least not the ones I talked to and called (I called 4-5 banks).

So just curious how are you all are doing it? How are you pulling cash out from rental properties which is placed under an LLC? What is the most feasible and sensible way to pull the cash out? I understand the difference between HELOC and refi and both will work in my situation. Any other directions I need to look towards?

Thanks.