My wonderful wife and I bought our house for 181k two years ago, since we have made some terrible financial choices that leave us blocked from conventional loans (large CC debt, being fixed but two years till in the green).

I don't flip in warzone or even in C/C- areas. 

Very few do not become tenants.Typically we get 70-80+ people contact us via Zillow or Apartments.com, we speak to about half, eliminate most of those, take a few applications and have  fewer actually do CC and BG. 

Starting on the shoestring with CC debt this late in the RE cycle is a lot of risk.

This is why savvy investors target C/C+ class neighborhoods (the fringe) moving towards B/A.

From what I remember if you're going the 5-year route, you just apply for the loan online and its in your bank account a few days later, it can be used to pay down cc debt, home reno, home down payment, college tuition etc.

@Alden TinderGet a low limit ($500) free cc and use it to pay your cell phone bill.

Then used 401(k) loan for 20% downpayment required, and CC for rehab until I refinanced.

@Maria Crenshaw My very nicest spiffiest "A" properties are in a "B-/C+" neighborhood and most of my properties are in C/C- with some in "D/D-" neighborhoods so perhaps my advice will not apply...

I opened several 0% interest credit cards to do the renovation and piled on about 60k in cc debt and (because of my utilization rate) my credit scored plummeted to just above 600.