Newbie...Making it work with little to no down payment.

[Chad Smith]

Hello everyone. This is my first post since joining and I'm going to ask a question that has been asked a million times before.  I hope this is the right forum for this question. 

How and where do I start?

I'm not a young guy or just starting out in life and I've been around real estate and real estate investing for pretty my whole life as an electrician or on the construction rehab side but never the guy doing the actual deals. I've even managed a few properties for other people. I'm just going to say it....I see people with no obvious experience bad credit or financials and they have no idea what they are doing make deals happen all the time.  I have a good paying steady job but little to no savings (I live in wonderful SoCal so pretty much everything I make goes towards living expenses) and I have average credit. The market crash killed me but I've been rebuilding for over 3 years now. Started at a 512 and finally as of today I have just over 640. I've been reading the forums and advice columns and have decided the best route for me is buying a duplex, triplex, fourplex or 5+. I read somewhere in the forums that on a 5+ units the banks look at the deal before they look at you. If it makes sense they are more likely to fund the deal but by the time I have a chance to present it to a bank or investor the deal is swooped up. My plan is to live in one and rent the others out. I'm currently a renter and am getting tired of filling up my landlords pockets. 

I originally started looking to buy just for myself but am having difficulty even getting financing or coming up with the required down payments. It's a bit discouraging actually. I find deals all the time but do not have the wearwithal to make them happen and by the time I possibly do, the deal has been swooped up by someone with cash in hand. Hard money or private investment doesn't work with buy and hold (or at least I haven't found that yet) and the banks won't even look at me for some reason. I tried the prequalify route but it's pittance compared to what it takes to actually buy something in Southern California. Anywhere else in the country it would buy a mansion.

Last year I set up a new company and formed an LLC. I've been in the process of building up the financials and credit for it but the road is slow and I'm basically having the same issue I did rebuilding my personal credit. Banks and credit card companies won't even look at me or my company.

Going back and reading this I realize it sounds a bit whinny but the question perplexes me as it probably does for thousands of others.