New Member from MO and a Few Questions

[Brian Buchanan]

Hello, new member here and beginner investor. I'm in the St. Louis, MO metro(out in the suburbs) area current business owner(non real estate related). Looking to get in real estate. I do have a background in mortgages so I am familiar with that part but I'm no longer in the mortgage industry and haven't been in a while. 

My goals is to have between 3-5 properties by the end of the year. I've been looking over the last few weeks and going to a couple open houses this weekend. I'm also not opposed to rehabs and keeping them to rent. I'm still trying to learn whether single family or multi units like 2-4 units are the way to go. The properties I'm looking at this weekend are all 2 units. Is one better than the other? My thinking with multi unit is that if you can't get a tenant in one you hopefully at least have a tenant in the other side or two bringing income in. But often times the rents are less than a SFR so maybe it's a wash.

Another question I have is financing. As I mentioned I planned on getting 3-5 buy the end of the year should I finance them or pay in cash? If I found the right properties I could pay for them in cash right now and even without a tenant I wouldn't not effect my daily life, or should I use that money to invest in to more properties once I get the hang of things and if things go south with a renter I still have that cash if needed. My current house I just built and was the GC on(first time doing it) and saved a lot of money and I don't have a mortgage on that either so I could take out a HELOC or something if ever needed. Also should I put my properties in an LLC and should it be a separate LLC for each property? And if I put them in an LLC and want financing I thought a conventional mortgage would not let you close the loan in an LLC unless that has changed??

Sorry for the long post, lots of newbie questions like I said, but I think I come in with the benefit of paying cash which I'm not sure many new investors have that luxury. Thanks for any tips/advice

Brian