New member from Las Vegas, but unsure how to start

[Stephanie Hardy]

Hello! I am super excited to become part of this group! My husband and I are self-employed with a pet business and it has gotten to a point where we are doing very little labor for the business, so we are wanting to get to our next step in life, real estate investing! My husband just got his real estate license and our current strategy is to buy rental (buy and hold) properties with the potential of doing flips later.

Our main issue, though, is because we are self-employed, banks don't like us and so getting a mortgage is difficult for us. We currently have 1 home we own & live in that would probably rent for only a few hundred more than what our mortgage is, if even that much. We have 3 small children (under 5) so trying to acquire properties being a primary residence (to get better rates) and moving every year or two would be very difficult for us. Ideally, we would stay in our home and buy rentals so we don't have to keep moving. Our business makes great money, so being able to make payments on 2 houses each month, if our second was vacant, wouldn't be hard for us. Again, with the self-employment, I think a portfolio lender might be our best option? We have about $25,000 saved for a down payment and repairs and are adding to that each month. However, I don't know if that is enough to get started.

I guess my questions are: should we try to seek out portfolio lenders? Where do you even find those? Are they usually smaller banks? How much should we have saved up at least to begin buying rental props?

Also, later on, how do you figure what the after renovation value is? From comps in the area that are finished?

Any help yall could give us would be much appreciated! I hope to learn a ton from all the blogs/podcasts/forums/etc. I love the subject of real estate and hope we can be one of many success stories!