No more than 80%... Really??

[Danual Berkley]

I've been reading The Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner as well as listening to the Bigger Pockets Podcast, and I've heard not buying for more than 80% of the property value was a must.

So what I did was run the numbers on some of the houses I'm interested in and it seems to really undercut what the asker is wanting. 

For example a seller listed a unit for $72,000.00 in my area, buying at 80% would mean I would offer them $57,600.00. That seems really insulting to me if I was the seller. 

So how do you even begin to achieve this goal of 80% without being told to F-Off???

[John Teachout]

One thing being missed here is that Brandon said 80% of value, not ask price. There are properties on the market that are listed both below and above their actual value. Finding those listed under market is not common but an off market property may be able to meet the 80% criteria.