Getting past a plateau

[Vik Venkatraman]

Hey guys - Would love any insight from this group on what I imagine to be a reasonably recurring problem.

I got into the buy and hold game with the money from selling my last company, and over the course of a year and half, have bought up 6 units. I'm selective on deals, and all of these are running at 8-10% cap rates.

I'm cashflowing nicely, but have run out of dry powder. I'm going back now and covering the properties with refinances, but don't think I'm going to get more than 2 more deals from it.

I really want to get up to 20 units, and don't want to take on hard money or anything like that. I am also avoiding taking on outside equity until my own portfolio is bulletproof.

I hear stories of people doing 100% refinances, and wonder if those are outlier stories, or if I'm doing something wrong. My banks wont refi me out over 80%.

How did you get over your initial plateau? Would gladly take any advice.