If you tell a seller you're offering them $100,000... buuuut, you're willing to go up to $115,000 in a pinch... all you're telling them is that your offer is $115,000, and to a seller, the negotiating starts at that number.

Save and penny pinch for your down payment, and parents can help toward down payment.

As they mention on several podcasts, if you simply remove coffee and insert chocolate, this is virtually an identical opportunity to the coffee farm parcel ownership opportunity.  

If you fill your portfolio with properties that do not cash flow, you will get pinched quickly or have to rely on portfolio lenders. 

Ie is the tub cracked or just dingy, as in a pinch you can epoxy paint a tub and caulk to bring it back vs replacing outright.

Even an open line of credit somewhere can really help in a pinch so long as you have the means to get it paid back in a relatively short amount of time. 

Then be sure to price correctly, learn to negotiate against different types of negotiators, know all line items of a contract seamlessly not to get pinched, know the entire process not to get stuck in any loopholes, meet inspectors, appraisers, work with mortgage brokers, underwriters and attorneys, know how to react to every obstacle along their way from contract to close...cause we know those never happen!

In a pinch, I suppose putting it in an LLC would make it easier to access the equity from an HML.4.

@Aaron MillisI wouldn't be overly concerned with penny-pinching when it comes to legalities.

As folks have mentioned previously, every block is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.