Given today’s interest rates, a highly-leveraged arrangement (where you’re putting 3% or 5% down) probably isn’t going to generate any cash flow, so unless you’re comfortable with injecting money into the deal every month, I’d recommend accumulating more cash before you start investing.Generally speaking, a good place to begin is when you have enough for a 20% down payment, closing costs, and 3 to 6 months of reserves.

If you are very conservative purchase a fixer upper so you can force equity and hopefully have a low enough payment so that you can LTR the property or even sell for profit should the STR avenue not work. 

I was thinking I could put down the 50k so he had enough to pay off the heloc and make payments to him for the remainder to be paid off in 10 years with new renters.

You’ll also want to know how they handle rent collection and late payments and if they can provide references from other investors they work with.A good investor-friendly agent should have a strong network of professionals like contractors, inspectors, and lenders to help with your investments.

We paid $1.775 million for the notes, worked out a modification with the borrower, and received the first 5 monthly payments relatively on time.  

I'm glad to know you received your January payment.

For a sample, consider a $295,000 project with a down payment of 5% and a mortgage payment of 7% interest.Good luck!

that isn’t subject to higher down payment requirements or higher interest.

I'm under contract for a nice double and was hoping to use part of the money for my portion of the down payment.

if you need $200K for a project, no one is going to loan you $200K - you need a down payment, holding costs, and you need to know what you're doing or you'll just turn that $200K into $150K.good luck