Strategies to pay for upfront CAPEX in first 12-18 months?

[Michael Ehmann]

We are under contract and in the due diligence period for a small multifamily unit in Atlanta. This would be a buy-and-hold play for us. None of us will be living in the property, so I don't think a 203k loan will be an option. 

The property has lots of differed maintenance (more than we expected) and HVAC units and water heaters that are all near end-of-life (all were installed at the same time). We understand the importance of budgeting for CAPEX and have conservative estimates in our budget.

One of our biggest fears is getting into this property and having to throw down another $20-30K in CAPEX within the first 12-18 months. We will have some reserves to start and could make it work if a ton of things hit us within the first 12-18 months. We're just really trying to minimize the amount of additional capital required out of our own pockets.

A few options we're considering as alternatives to paying in cash ourselves:

• Having the seller fix some issues before purchase (we're in the process of post-inspection renegotiations). We're not asking for everything to be fixed and don't expect it to be perfect. But we think the things we're asking for are reasonable. 
• Credit cards: we'd like to avoid this at all costs because of high interest rates.
• Hard money
• Private money

Are there any other loan types or financing options we should consider to deal with upfront CAPEX in the first 1-2 years until we have a larger CAPEX fund built up?

Thanks!