Cleveland Ohio, A New Person

[Robert Mitchener]

My name is Robert Mitchener, and I've been looking into real estate for a few months off and on, and in too many places to be honest. I've contacted multiple traditional lenders for information, and requested funding from them for some ideas I've had, all with the result of learning more without getting anywhere. I have two goals in mind; One, to become more proficient at finding and financing real estate deals for investment property. While this means that I may need to simply get more money to start out and maybe change my strategy, I do want to start owning a property sooner rather than later, having it and myself pay it off over 10 or 20 years instead of waiting that long to save enough money for a traditional mortgage and then spend 10 or 20 years paying it off after that. Two, I want to eventually become a private money lender, and help people like myself with good ideas get their hands on the property quickly instead of waiting even if they aren't making or saving incredible amounts of money. I'd like to be able to finance deals like Divvy Homes where I would purchase the property outright, and the borrower would simply pay like a rent-to-own property until they've paid it off, just without the minimum $1,000 in payments every month.

Perhaps I am thinking above my means, and I simply need to save money, purchase an owner-occupied property, improve it, then rent it out once it is paid off. My first post I made here was looking for information on turnkey styled investment property ownership and how to get money to fund those. I think for now I will be looking a lot more than actively trying to find something that will work.

[James Wise]

Originally posted by @Robert Mitchener:

@James Wise There appear to be several; the first is low savings, where $9,000 out of my current $12,000 is borrowed. Most lenders I have contacted have told me that I cannot use borrowed money for a down payment. The second is my debt to income ratio, which if I paid off all debts I'd have $3,000 saved up that I could use, and over half of that is in Fundrise's portfolio which takes a while to withdraw from. I have a few plans to save money up now that I'm looking closer at it, but that will take some time because of the third hurtle; I work 5 hours a day and enjoy my free time too much to take on another job, though I have been looking at freelancing. Thanks for the link! I will look into that tonight.

@Tom Ott Thank you!

@Ben Halabi Thanks, I will certainly look at that. Will be a very helpful resource.

@Anthoney Hanks I would certainly be able to house hack with FHA, although I know how picky I can be when it comes to where I live and moving around a lot doesn't sound like something I'd like to do (I like to settle for 10 years or more in one place). It is certainly a possibility though, I don't want to just straight up close off any one strategy, though it's more than just me, and I have to appease who I live with too. I will take a look for that webinar!

@Ryan Evans I may have to talk to more banks, because Citizen's Bank's loan officer told me their requirements were 25% down and no borrowed money (see my answer to James Wise at the top of this reply) and that $64,000 was too low for them to fund even if I did have the $16,000 down payment on something that was $80,000. I can certainly find a way to field a down-payment one way or another, probably up to about $20,000, but I feel like a lot of traditional lenders are not going to like anything below that, or how I get that money. Since most banks are have very strict lending guidelines, I didn't think it would be the best idea to waste my time finding loan officers at each one to try and find the one that might on the off-chance be able to do what I was looking for; in your experience have traditional loan terms varied widely from one bank to another?

@Justin Windham Thanks for the links; I will be looking into a lot more information in the coming months, and as Negan has repeatedly said, "People are a resource."

@Brian Garlington My response to James Wise at the top of this reply has most of it; borrowed money for the down payment, low mortgage loan amount, debt to income ratio too high. I have all my financials well in hand, but I understand their desire to ensure if the property itself fails (although it should be self-sufficient), I would be able to repay them what is owed.

 Work more. Save the money and get started. It's really that simple.