Funding advice, need help!

[Bryan Z.]

Hi, so I just joined the forum, nice to meet everyone. So basically I am at a crossroads in my life. I have a really good knack for investing but I’m not really sure how to proceed. Previously I’ve used a well off partner for funding, but I don’t really want to use him anymore. My financial situation......

38, married with one kid and one on the way

$300k completely liquid, (just sold apartment building)
Bought my current house in 2008, $50k mortgage balance $450k value.

I have no job right now. Wife is a part time Nurse practitioner. I’m focusing mostly on getting my house ready for sale and then probably focus on renovations for next house I buy. 

My wife and I want to move. I’d like to be living in new house by summer next year.

Looking at likely buying a $600k house and putting $200k in renovations on top of it if I had to guess. I will likely have $650k-$700k completely liquid. It is everything I am worth. (Made some bad deals with partners, I did all the investing but owned far too little because I was stupid.)

I can’t decide between getting a job and continuing real estate investing. I am pretty good at real estate investing, but I’m not sure how to get the money I need. I want to either flip $500k plus homes or apartment buildings, preferably 10-30 unit apartment buildings. But I also need money to survive because I diy a lot and I’m slow. (Took me 18 months to renovate a 20 unit building)

I do not want to build a rental portfolio. I’m experienced enough now that I know what I want to do and how I want to do it.

My problem is I don’t make a lot of monthly income and the banks don’t like lending when you don’t have a lot of income. My wife doesn’t make enough either.

So how can I take $700k cash, and buy an $800k primary home and then continue to real estate invest with almost no monthly income. I need like $50k-$75k a year of spending money too. At first I thought of a hard money lender, but I’m kinda slow in the flipping process and I’m pretty sure I’d get crushed with interest doing that. I’d like to dump all my money into the primary home and then line of credit on it, but I don’t think I’d get approved for the line I need.

cliff notes: i can easily turn $1m into $2m in 18-24months but I don’t know how to get the $1m. I’ve only done 4 properties (2) apartment buildings and (2) houses, but they all more than doubled due to excellent buying and creative renovation.

house - bought $165, renovations $40k, now worth $450. 11 unit building bought for $450k, $30k in renovation, sold for $1.2. 20 unit building bought for $400k, $500k in renovation, sold for $2.1.

I’m not sure if that’s enough experience and they just want sheer volume of properties like a low margin house flipper.

Any advice would be appreciate.

My alternate is make $200k a year at some high stress sales job I can get through a friend. I don’t really want to do that though. If I start that I won’t stop it.

Thanks in advance! Sorry if I don’t know the lingo, i don’t really spend much time in the “investor community“ so to speak.