Most of our newer investors approach 2-3 lenders to discuss loan options.Some lenders recommend making your financing inquiries within a 45-day time period to avoid larger drops in your credit scores.All the best!

Purchase price: $160,000 Cash invested: $40,000 Sale price: $268,000 I bought my first house in Kalispell Montana as a long term investment and possibly a rental.

@Jeffrey Bourque Are you planning to finance this with a local bank or credit union?

LLCs tend to be beneficial for financing options if using hard money as it can be required depending on the program.

@Ricardo Lemus Most investors try to get the longest term on their mortgage that is possible, usually 30 years for most.

Can anyone recommend a firm that does not use Lexis Nexis for background checks? I was going to use Kiavi, but apparently I do not have a consumer profile and lexisnexis has to locate it and this can take a while and ...

@James Calvert there is conventional financing that allows you to use renovations to make the property livable, just as you would with an FHA 203k loan.

Also, consider working with lenders who specialize in multifamily financing to ensure you're prepared when a deal comes up.If you need financing options or guidance on structuring a multifamily deal, let me know.

Always use a property manager to keep your real estate investments as passive as possible and keep you compliant with Fair Housing laws.This way you can learn to manage the property manager and learn from experience as you go.If you buy a bunch of properties all at once, they may not all fit your buying criteria, there may be deferred maintenance that needs to be dealt with all at the same time, and you will not have accumulated the management experience building your portfolio one at a time.To Your Success!

We are planning to live in one unit and rent the other half out of a duplex, then rinse and repeat this process as many times as possible over the next 5-10 years.