Should we pay cash, take a loan or use seller financing?

[Julius L Evans]

Greetings. 

We are on the cusp of making our first deal. Maybe our first two! While driving the neighborhood looking at properties that we found online, we drove past a FSBO sign and called the number. I scheduled an appointment and met the owner a couple of days later. He showed us around and told me his price. My wife and I, who are partners, considered the deal and thought it might be a good entry into the real estate investing business. We scheduled a contractor and unfortunately, the first one was a no-show, but this morning, a different one came and we are now waiting to receive the report.

While getting all this together, earlier during the week, we found another FSBO and we saw it today too. (Don't worry about the timeline, this all transpired over the course of two weeks, with the second viewing of the first property this morning and the first viewing of the second property this afternoon. The second property is 90 minutes away from where we live). We looked at #2 and it looks good. I've been running different scenario analysis on both properties and no matter the numbers I use, the analysis on both properties look solid.

We are interested in buying them both. But should I get a mortgage on both properties? One requires rehab work. One is turnkey. I don't want to spend ALL our cash - but our financial position would support financing the purchases. However, there are two separate properties, so we are just a little cautious about how we should proceed. 

The higher priced property may have an opportunity to be seller-financed. Property #1 is below one hundred. Property #2 is below forty. Any insight or wise words would be most helpful in helping us make our decisions.