Ways to raise small amount of funds

[Andrew M.]

After finishing my first rehab/ cash flow property, I'm looking to purchase a a couple more cashflow rentals. Here's my issue.

I'm young and have minimal funds (i'll say around 17k at the moment). I found an awesome deal on 3 currently rented connected row houses in a rough area outside pittsburgh. 10k/ house for 30k total.Gross rents are 1350/month.Seems to be an extremely safe bet as far as cash flow goes if I can get any sort of loan with more than a 5 year term. As you can see I have a significant portion of the money in cash but not enough to buy outright.

My problem lies in the fact that the amounts are too small to do a mortgage. If I was buying one property and needed 25k I may be able to swing it but no-one is going to give me 3 8k mortgages. I have one family memeber who may be able to throw in a couple grand (lets say 3-4) but shes very risk averse and just does not want to get involved (not based on the deal itself, just the concept)

So now I need to raise about 13k or this great deal may pass me by. I don't know anything about hard money lenders but I would be interested to hear if people think this may be an applicable situation to use hard money lenders.I've also heard creative ideas like applying for a credit card cashing it out, and using that as a personal line of credit. Obviously I'd prefer not to do that but if it came down to that and I could swing it in terms of cash flow I might try it.

Still looking for alternatives as of now though so I'd be really happy to hear anyones creative ideas on how I could raise this small amount of funds.