It helps me feel more confident about the numbers before moving forward

The county is the second fastest-growing in the U.S. and the fastest in North Carolina.The zoning for the project is already approved, and with our captive audience of potential tenants, I’m confident that all units will be leased upon completion.I’m seeking advice on how to best structure this debt with a private investor or investors in the short term until the property is fully rented and long-term financing is secured.

Once you’ve got some experience and equity built up, you can more confidently move into multifamily properties when the right one comes along.That said, if your goal is to scale into multifamily, don't lose sight of that.

I am confident if I were to have started taking action sooner I would have had many more deals under my belt but I was a knucklehead and was swinging hammers on my fixer-upper instead of hiring a contractor. 

Don't get sucked in to borderline applicants, make it as black and white as you can so you can approve or turn down with confidence. 

You can always form the LLC once you are under contract and are confident you will be proceeding with the purchase through a novation.

are you confident in the use case for the building or are you planning to repurpose to something else?

If you have the POF to close on it all cash, you should be able to finance it with a hard money loan and give confidence to the seller that if the loan does not get approved you can still buy it with your own funds. 

Also, I’m curious—have you found that lenders’ confidence grows after seeing how smoothly things run, or are there certain aspects of the deal where they tend to focus their due diligence?

Getting an accurate ARV and running different financing scenarios will help you make a more confident decision.Let me know if you have any more questions or need to walk through the numbers further!