When they do, you can refinance to a lower rate.Dealing with current high interest rates (about 7% on 01/27/2025) you have the following choices:A larger down paymentAccept a negative cash flowBuy down the interest rateCombine and balance all three to get an acceptable cash flow today.

You don't need to know everything to get started; you need a foundation to build on, and the rest will come through experience and then refining your education.You can build a basic understanding of investing in 3-6 months.

Set up a Joint account with the seller so you can make deposits to continue the automatic payments to the lender until you refinance the property.Thanks,Dustin

If you are trying to continue holding the other two properties then you should pull out some equity in the form or a cash out refinance on one or both or use a portfolio loan as @Jimmy Murray suggested.

@Timothy Frazier Yes, the only reason to use HML as a down payment is if the property is "mostly turnkey" AND you don't have the funds to renovate AND you have strong CMA comps from a real estate agent that supports that the fact that you are buying a property that is under valued AND your renovations would push that so that you could refinance.

refinance our own home with some money down + purchase another flip? 

Will refinance if rates go down in the future. 

Something to consider maybe using one of these companies to help find a house, refine your process by example of what they are doing, then taking over management for a year and seeing how it goes.

We got out of condo conversions couldn't really sell any of them and transitioned to ground up development of single family homes and three story walkup triplexes on a build to rent model which is much easier for us to manage and our exit isn't a sale it's just a refinance. 

Given my lack of experience in accurately assessing the additional costs and potential risks of investing in an AE zone, I felt it was best to step back and refine my evaluation process before taking on something like this.Thanks again for your input!