I used a program in Minnesota to finance a small downpayment with a no-interest loan, then had a loan from my parents to fill in about $5000 of costs.

One of my strategies will be to put money into energy efficiency to decrease heating costs, and increase my cash flow - Maine has some good loan programs/rebates that can really help tighten up a building, and finance efficient heating, so I'll be taking advantage of those.

Has anyone had any experience with a Rental Rehabilitation Program when purchasing an investment property?

We now ACH payments direct from borrowers accounts by a process that is automatic without the need for human intervention, those payments are automatically recorded, and the program we use ACHs distributions into our investors accounts.7.

There are programs like Avail and Stessa that do this and aren't too expensive. 3) It's tempting to just use a spreadsheet when you have one property but before you know it you have several and it's a pain to switch over to an actual system.

You could advise them to look into programs for emergency rental assistance.

As you are probably aware FHA rules state "FHA’s single family programs are limited to owner-occupied principal residences only."

What sort of problems have you run into with assistance programs?

Not sure what anyone's problem is with John Jackson's program, but I have had it for a couple years and use it all the time.

Not done it personally but I've helped investors do it.Keep in mind that most programs will require you to have cash reserves to do it.