Financing Renovation With Mortgage

[Nick Hammen]

I am looking to close on a rental house in the next month. I'm estimating some rehab costs before listing it for rent. I would like to finance the rehab work by rolling it into the cost of the mortgage instead of taking out a second loan on the property. Would that be a best practice, or would it be better to find a hard money lender, do the rehab work, and then get a mortgage based on the purchase and rehab costs?