I even tell them to reach out to me if they have questions, knowing only a few will actually follow through.And that’s what sets high performers apart from the rest: taking action when most people hold back.If you’re just starting out, remember, one conversation could change everything.

I am debating about the converting the existing old gutted building to either multifamily building (6 units each around 500 sqft small studio) or mix of 4 residential and 2 retail/restaurant conversion (the back side of the property has Big enough lot for outdoor dining or any other use cases.Any recommendations for use case of pure multifamily or mixed of multi family and retail?

At a high level, this is generally the path people take - we see a lot of people have success in this route - start building the portfolio with banks, low down payments, and then **generally** when you hit around 5 or so properties - it starts to make sense to switch over to LLCs, its too hard to qualify/deal with paperwork of banks and switch towards private lenders like DSCR Loans - (LLC friendly, easier) to scale past 5 or so.

I have already talked to a private lender of mine that tentatively agreed to lend on the deal.

.: Quote from @Chris Seveney: @James WiseI was sitting next to a doctor at a conference who did a private money loan and lost $$200k then he did a jv deal where he became co-owner of a LLC, gave a personal guarantee on the asset and put money in the deal to buy it but didn’t put a lien on property so partner went and leveraged the assets as well and ran off and dr had personal guarantee.They then bought a property and renovated half of it then decided to knock it down….I had a successful shoulder surgeon ask me to list his apartment building that was under-performing.

Try to buy after 1950 and avoid single family conversions.

I would start with all cash and then seek private lending money. 

It can be a conversation in search of a win-win, a mutual effort vs adversarial negotiation as on-market is designed to be. 

Have a conversation with them.  

Not hard money, not private money.