Quote from @Steve Smith:
David,
Wow, is all I can say. You got some bad training and headed down the wrong path. You don't need 5 houses, you need ONE good one, PERIOD. Buy local, manage it yourself and LEARN the house investing business. Get a GOOD quality house, and a GOOD quality tenant. Have the tenant do the basic maintenance as part of his lease. Let him pay you monthly ON TIME, or AHEAD OF TIME, without fail. If you give him a good deal on a great house and you get a qualified tenant, he will do this for you.
THEN, buy house number two next year. Repeat this over and over again. If you do it right, it will be easy and you should create about $1M in net worth in 10 years. As time goes on, sell your worst rental and replace it with a better one. NEVER ReFi anything! Every time you do that, you loose money. As time goes on, pay off your small loans and end up with free and clear houses.
Once you have 10 free and clear houses you can live off of them debt free for the rest of your life. If you want to live a bit higher on the hog and buy expensive stuff, get 15 or 20 or a few more, but do it with the same formula as above.
You don't need 100s of houses. I cringe when I hear about folks that bought 100 or 200 or 1000 houses. Makes NO sense. I keep reminding myself: KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID.
And, YES you can do subject too's and seller financing. 90% of mine are that way. And lease options to sell work great.
Just learn how to do it right. And you don't have to do repairs and remodels yourself (unless you like to work for low wages and sweat). My hammer is for cracking open nuts, not remodeling.
Just food for thought....
I love this philosophy. Clean, simple. Thank you for this valuable path. I appreciate your wisdom!