How are those not doing rehabs coming up with money to scale?

[Shane M.]

Most advice given on this forum, books and other places about real estate investing all involve some form of rehab. Most recommend Brrrr type strategies in an effort to reuse as much as your initial capital as possible.

My question is for those using a long term buy and hold strategy that doesn't involve significant value add rehab, how are you scaling up? I can't seem to think of creative ways to finance these deals other than saving big chunks of money over a long period of time. Hard money is mostly going to be applicable to rehabs. A HELOC would require finding a property that cash flows a ton because you would still have to come up with a way to pay down the HELOC to reuse for future deals.