I on the path of looking for my 1st investment properties and I am planning on going with conventional financing for the 1st property.I have some duplexes that I am interested in looking in, and they seem like decent deals and they're running for around $100,000.

Ask and you shall receive- Was just on the Institutional Property Advisors - Marcus & Millichap Research call who shared this chart of the top and bottom 10 markets for 2014 completions forecast and the percent of current inventory that the new completions will represent: So for those 20 metros we can do a little math; dividing the number of completions by the completions as a % of inventory to get the size of the market and then match that against the number of permits from above to get a sense of what's coming in terms of new supply.

Inventory is very low and want to keep my rentals local so I can work on them myself.

Seminars and conventions are also great but leave your credit card at home hahaReading is another good one.Thanks and have a great day.

Straw buyers are a legal practice as long as it is disclosed with a conventional loan.

And, James, thanks for that tip - I'll definitely keep that in mind as I move forward.Also, I definitely plan to honor the current lease agreement, I just wondered how to approach raising the rent when the lease was up, or how I can check the background of the current tenants so I know whether they are reliable.Here are some of the other numbers that I was able to track down today:Insurance: $692/year through one bank that I talked toTaxes: 567.76/year for 2013Using these numbers and an online mortgage calculator I came up with $262 for the monthly mortgage payment for a conventional loan.

There are options to buy with a bit more down (5% total) and buyout the PMI with conventional financing.

I'm not sure if in your situation you'd be able to get conventional financing or not, but I'd find that out!

We have a strong military community, always growing medical training facilities, a tremendously strong tourist and convention sector and the Eagle Ford Shale project created 116,000 high paying mid skilled jobs in 2013 and a 61 billion economic impact on the region.

Is there a reason you are ruling out conventional lending?