Hard Money Loans: These are short-term loans from private lenders based on the property's value rather than your credit score.

I enjoy helping new investors and bigger pockets members find and use loopholes to save money.

If your student loans are only 3-5% interest, that's pretty good so I think it's okay to pay those off over time.It sounds like you're making good income with your current employer and there is room to grow, so I'd plan to stay with that job until you can pay your high interest loans off and save enough for a down payment for your first property.

I need to do some more research and potentially save some more money so I won't run into as many challenges. 

Use a CRM to save everyone's contact info, set reminders for yourself to follow-up, create follow-up campaigns, etc.5.

I will be taking a residential loan from my TSP since by my calculations that would save me a lot of money on interest and give me good equity.

I would love to "save" them all but this one was a gem due to proximity to the venues and base.  

I would be comfortable to some degree as this would just be a saving plan of sorts.

Here are some common pitfalls I see for new investors from the private lending perspective:• Insufficient Funds: most lenders are going to be able to lend a first-time investor somewhere around 75-80% of the purchase price of an existing property + 100% of your estimated rehab budget (or an 80/100 loan, for short).

I thought they weren’t paying high interest on their savings account but I checked and I’m almost at 4%.