What I find interesting is how banks downplay the effect this credit crunch is having on their overall exposure.

SInce these "rules" seem to be a guiding light for so many, instead of crunching actual numbers, and since these "rules" are rather flexible given the price point and other considersations, maybe we should have a graphic or grid that would identify the best per centages to use for the different property types, for a banded analysis concidering price, market and investment aggressiveness (like a bond rating in reverse) to the risk tolerance..

So, taking a loan doesn't generally impact an investment strategy, such as if I were investing in stocks.I will usually do the annual loan to get me over a cash flow crunch when I have the opportunity to do more deals than I have cash for.

I think you are ready to venture into owning 1-4 unit if you sit down and crunch your numbers a bit more.

He also said he gets called on it every other day.all that means nothing though if the numbers don't crunch correctly.

If you really have an understanding of your own market and future trends, and have a good team - doesn't matter where that is geographically - and you really have the numbers crunched for worse case scenarios, you can be successful.

This ended up costing me an additional $750 because the contractor I was using became very scarce after he received his final payment and I was in a time crunch to get everything wrapped before we closed.Start out with a good accounting system in place.  

As for actual number crunching I use Excel.

STEP 2 – Contact Your Lender/Mortgage Broker/Financing Partner/Investor-They will do most of the online research, leg work and number crunching with you.

Forum users love crunching through the numbers.More broadly, if your goal is buy-and-hold so you can transition into RE full time in 6 years, you should be looking for cash flow first.