Help with understanding lending process

[David Rutledge]

Hi Everyone,

I am looking to get some more information about different financing options both conventional and non conventional.

I am just starting out in the RE investment world and I am looking only at long term buy and hold rental properties (both multi and SFR) I recently completed the purchase of my first few properties both with conventional financing with a 20% down payment.

Moving forward I am looking to add to my portfolio over the next 6 - 9 months. I am looking for some more information on financing options that may be available to me in order to maximize my saved capital and leverage position.

I am only looking at very modestly priced homes or units (between 100 - 150K) and I have about enough for a down payment for one other property in this range (around 20K) My plan right now is to wait a few months, get some experience under my belt as a landlord after getting my feet wet with these two properties and then pull the trigger on another property with similar characteristics as the ones I have recently purchased.

As I mentioned I have enough for a down payment for one more using the conventional financing method I have used with the first few but one more similar purchase will effectively drain the last of my capital. I am admittedly a complete novice in the investment business and I am on a huge learning curve with all the elements of RE investment that have come up. I am wondering if there may be other options available to me in the way of maximizing my capital to secure financing for more RE purchases.

Ideally I would like to build my portfolio as much as possible but I feel that my current capital can only stretch to one more conventional purchase and I will need to wait to save additional funds for the purchase of my next investments (hopefully coming from a mixture of my regular income and rental income).

I am wondering if any experienced investors on here have any advice for someone like me and can perhaps suggest some "outside of the box" methods of RE financing that I may not be aware of.

If I was to go with another conventional mortgage I would most likely use the same lender. Both my properties will be generating a modest cash flow and I am also wondering how long this cash flow will need to be serviced before the lender will view the properties as income generating assets as apposed to liabilities for the purposes of my debt to income ratio.

Any information on any of this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much for your time.

David 

[Nelson Barss]

I'd suggest reading up on the BRRRR strategy and thinking of that $20k as the down payment you'll use over and over again on all of your future investments. The other thing to research is how to find GREAT deals. Ideally you should be finding properties to purchase at a significant discount. This is probably the most important skill you can develop as an investor.

If you use your $20k to purchase this type of house, improve it, then refinance it,  you should be able to get your $20k back and still have a 25% equity position in the newly acquired rental property...not to mention solid cash flow.  You can then move on to purchase the next property with that same $20k.  

In fact, if you accept those as your parameters, you'll force yourself to develop those deal finding skills that will make or break you as in investor.