Best financing options for portfolio purchase of 18 doors?

[Eric Sebast]

Hey all, just closing on our first property (duplex) thats finally been scheduled for Monday at 3pm. Doing that one traditional finance with 25% down. However turns out I know the owner of the property through work, and he is potentially looking to let go of the remainder of his properties, I believe a total of 7 or 8. All of them are good cash-flowing properties with almost all of them rented out to solid tenants.

My question is, is there an "easy" way to finance them? I'm guessing we're gonna be talking about a total purchase price around $800k-$1M, and it may be technically possible for me to put my hands the required typical 20-25% down, but its not something that I want to do.

He did mention that he refinanced them to pull cash out of them about a year ago and will have a pre-payment penalty on them if he sold them. Is it possible to assume his loans and make it easier on me that way with some possible owner financing on his end to me (no idea yet if he is remotely interested).

Any thoughts or ideas on how we could do this deal with the minimal cash out of pocket?