Hell Sam, appreciate you letting us in on your story. With that mentality and drive you will make it big. I am a newer investor as well, purchased my first duplex back in Feb of this year, rented it out and have been managing it myself. I chose to manage myself not really to save on the PM payment but wanted to learn and I figured the best way to learn is to manage my property myself. I also read a lot of books, listened to bigger pockets podcasts and watched as many videos as possible to educate myself before jumping in. I did this for just over a year or so and finally decided to make the leap and purchase the property.
In order to get the down payment, I opened up a HELOC on my primary. This was nerve-racking to say the least but once I got the tenants in the units and rents started to come in, I felt a bit better about the situation. The rents pay for both the mortgage and the HELOC on top of being able to put funds away for cap-ex, maintenance & vacancy. I will say I have learned a lot from managing my own units but still have a lot to learn as a whole. I was lucky enough to meet and work with a great investor friendly realtor and investor friendly lender. They both helped me out tremendously and ensured to do what was best for my long-term goals with the RE investing. There have been ups and downs but anything worth doing I believe has its ups and downs. Just make sure you learn from both.
With all that said, I am now stuck. I would like to purchase another 2-4 unit here soon but the funding/down-payment is the issue. My rental property has not appreciated enough in order to cash out refi to pay off my HELOC to utilize for my next property. My interest rate is not too bad at 7.25% on the rental and the interest rate on my primary is at 4%. My lender was talking to me about doing a cash-out refi on my primary to pay off the HELOC which would put me at a bit of a higher rate on my primary, but the HELOC would be paid off and that is currently on a variable rate at 9.26%.
I would love to speak with anyone who has been in my position and has more experience than I do in order to see what other options I may have to continue my RE investing journey. Thank you for starting this post, I feel I needed something like this.
P.S
I am 43 so started out a little late but I figured better late than never!!!