(Non-beginner investors can do OK with condos on a short-term basis at the right point in the market cycle but care must be taken not to be without a chair when the music stops.)Third, in this particular case the #s are not only tight, by my calculations they'd actually put you into slightly negative cash flow.Using the same format as the original, my numbers are:Property:Purchase price: $95,000Down payment: $19,000Private $ down payment loan: $14,000Real down payment: $5,000Monthly income: $1,100Yearly income: $13,200Operating expenses using the "50% rule": ($6,600)this would include taxes, insurance and HOA feeYearly mortgage pmts (main mortgage): ($4,896)(76,000 loan for 30 years at 5%)Yearly private loan pmts: ($1,782)(14,000 loan for 10 years at 5%)Yearly free cash flow: ($78)For all the reasons above, I would recommend you continue saving until you have the entire down payment.

I go by Kirosakis mantra - you make money when you buy - not praying on market appreciation.Once the music stops in this game of real estate musical chairs and interest rates kick back on I may look at ontario again.

The big end-of-year meeting is coming up when the NY manager will be sitting eight chairs down from the bank's COO on the left side and the Conn manager will be sitting directly across from him on the COO's right side.

People that believe multifamily can't fail will go the way of the house flippers for the last downturn when the musical chairs stop there will be a lot of losers in the space.

Transparent tables and chairs can make a huge difference and are definitely in style.

And many times from my arm chair..

I arrive & the place is empty except for a couple of plastic patio chairs.

There is a lot of arm-chair landlords on here that won't spend one hour of their time a year or one dollar that they don't absolutely have to.

So these speculators would buy in Phase I, ride the builder's manipulation to the top, and sell right before the final units were done in order to harvest some of the profit from the developer's manipulations.Then we had a Great Recession, the music stopped, and everyone left "standing" lost the game of musical chairs in a massive way. 

From a selfish point of view, [we] should probably endow chairs to ensure the perpetual teaching of EMT.If Mike doesn't want to invest in equities, great!