If you're comfortable living where you are, equity in your current property or your savings rate would be the two other ways to get your next one which is going to be much slower.

Hi @Evan Coopersmith, I'm an investor and licensed mortgage broker here in Chicago (Oak Park).

Those that don't are often people who have owned their home for a long time and paid off their mortgage or high income earners.

They are asking for 28% capital call proportional to investment amount. primary purpose of capital call to survive high interest rates for next 1 year and hoping interest rates gets favorable by then.

Contractors, unless you have a working relationship with them, normally do not want you bouncing ideas off them.Understand what their hourly rate is, have a discussion with them that you are okay with paying them an hourly rate if they walk the property with you and provide you a scope of work along with an explanation of what you can/can't get away with in regards to improvements.ask them if you go with them, if they can credit you the amount that you paid.Once you develop a working relationship with a few contractors, you can bounce ideas off them and expect quality responses.I do not invest in New York.Best of luck. 

My clients who invest in Section 8 housing do so in 'not quite' transitioned communities but that have low crime rates.

You also cannot use a second mortgage (from HML/private lender) for a 2-4 unit non owner property. 

I am not worried so much about maximizing it rather than that it gives me a bit; because as more of the estimated $150000 property mortgage I want to take is paid down, the numbers get a bit better with appreciation as well.

I literally laughed through the phone at his suggestion, because I was broke, in debt, and in every way and unqualified borrower, and the lending environment in 2012 was probably stricter than it had been since the invention of the 30yr mortgage.

Your mortgage company gets paid off first and then it's up to the homeowner to secure a construction loan to rebuild.