I was recently laid off and have accumulated about $20,000 in credit card debt, primarily from paying last year's property taxes and covering a few months of living expenses.

If you can take out lines of credit on other properties you own, I prefer that to going the hard money/private lender route, because it tends to be significantly cheaper.

If you had 50k in credit card debt for business startup costs (not real estate) with a 3-4-year plan to pay it off, high debt utilization in the meantime and a 620 credit score - but wanted to start investing in rental properties - what would you do with 20k that falls into your lap?

Hi Vincent, There are lenders that offer a DSCR product for an applicant that hasnt owned any real estate.How is your credit?

I have great credit, some money saved up and ready to start investing.

We started with $1MM of our own capital, and have since grown to about $25MM through raising private money and utilizing bank lines of credit.

I like to have lines of credit for optionality and many of these are IO  

Some local credit unions and banks can offer great terms in the 75%-80% LTV range.If you’d like, feel free to reach out directly, and I can share some connections that have worked well for me over the years.

@Joe Villeneuve I have a similar situation, I have a 743 fico score, with a credit card that have a remaining 12,000 to pay off a 20,000 card.

I've gotten a few bites and some apps but mostly dead beats with evictions and bad rental history.