leveraging property to obtain a loan payment to buy another property n for the dow

[Corey Demuth]

Okay I have a few questions about acquiring property once you already have a few under your belt.

Let's say you own three houses that are each worth 200k. One is completely paid off and the other two you have 50k each in equity (so you have a 150k mortgage on each of those two houses.)

Now you want to acquire a fourth property that costs 200k but you do not have 50k to put down, so you cannot get a conventional loan (which requires 25% down on an investment property.)

Is there some way to use your equity in one or more of the houses as collateral to obtain a mortgage for the new (4th) house? In other words, rather than coming up with 50k cash, could you put a lien on one of the houses or use some other legal document/instrument/contract/etc that in effect gives the lender the right to foreclose on your other property and keep the first 50k of the sale if you default on the 4th mortgage?

Next question, using the same property portfolio as above, with 1 200k house paid off and 2 200k houses that each have 50k of equity. If you have been renting for a few years, and can show documentation (leases, tax returns, etc) that prove you have successfully rented the properties and turned a profit for a number of years, is there some way to obtain a loan to buy more property based entirely or mostly upon the projected income of that property? In other words, could they use the rent income you expect to receive once you rent out the 4th property as the basis for your ability to pay the loan? I know you cannot do this if you are an average Joe buying your first investment property, but do the rules change once you have established yourself as a successful landlord/investor? Also, if they DO allow you to do this, does it also change the amount they expect as a down payment? (ie would they allow you to put down less than the standard 25% because you are a proven successful landlord and have documentation backing this up?)

Final question: with the questions above, would the rules change if you owned a business and put your property into the business (an llc or corp) and then tried to get a loan for more property via the business as opposed to applying for the loan personally?

Thanks!!

*edit* can a moderator please fix the title? sorry it was supposed to be 'leveraging property to obtain a loan for another property'