It’s a beautiful old house and would be a real gem if it was restored, but I don’t have the funds or a credit score good enough to get a loan that big (without an insane amount of interest tacked on).I’m hoping to turn someone on to it who loves restoring old properties, or start investing in a group that does and tell them about my house and invest as a team.

I am looking to refinance in the near term either when rates drop to the 6.5% range into a conventional 30 year mortgage or as quickly as I am able into a first lien HELOC to be able to park paychecks into the mortgage and save a significant amount on interest or so it seems.

Did you set out to retire with real estate, did you have a goal or an amount you wanted to make?

I think initially it makes sense to find properties that already have finished basements, in-law suites, etc. as converting those spaces to ADUs will be inexpensive and create a significant amount of rental income ($2,000/month+ in most areas close to the city).

I found someone in my area with a decent amount of experience in real estate who advised me to first purchase a single family home of my own (starter home) then proceed to use that as my first rent house in a few years time.

Essentially what I found is you have to find projects with massive ARV for their system to work.

Explain your concerns about the property's flood zone status and see if they are willing to release your deposit or reduce the sale price to account for the potential risks and lower property values associated with it.While $5K isn't a trivial amount, sometimes avoiding a much bigger headache down the road is worth the loss.

The 250k+ loan amount is usually a sweet spot in pricing. cheers! 

Welcome to the community and be ready for a huge amount of information at your finger tips.

Boomers RE investors have made hilarious amounts of wealth in real estate over the last 40 years because 10-Year Treasury bond yields (and therefore - cap rates) have compressed from ~15% in the early 1980’s to ~60bps in 2021.