Need advice on creative financing

[Akshay Bhaskaran]

Current situation: I live in Austin, TX and have an investment property in Atlanta, and almost closing on my second one. Both are $250K, and I'd to put 25% down which is $62K for each. 

Problem: Though I'm almost proceeding on the loan for property # 2, my lender (mortgage broker) has started bringing up words like cash reserve, DTI is more and stuffs like that. He says increase your annual base pay

Question: 

- People who are still having a W-2 job like me, how are you scaling your portfolios? 

- Do you need to come up with 25% down every time to get a property? 

I see terms like use OPM, buy RE with $0 down, but none of those gurus tell the actual idea without me enrolling in their $2000 master course - which I don't want to.

So, finally, coming to this BP community to learn more about creative financing, how to grow/scale my portfolio. Thanks all in advance.