., which, as it's name would suggest, is just north of Kansas City, MO.This area has also been traditionally a Class C neighborhood for both commercial and residential.  

Back then, values when up in 2008 to $135K and took out an HELOC for $35K and have been paying interest only for past 8-years (a time when I was under-employed doing non-profit work/Christian Church planting ministry).

Best,Christian

If you don't have the cash or the ability to get a traditional loan, you may have to use creative financing or partnerships.

Alternatively, you can use cash to purchase distressed property in nice neighborhoods that would not otherwise qualify for traditional financing and/or the owner wants/needs to sell fast such that a 30+ day escrow to fund a traditional loan would not work ... in that case your only other competition would be from other cash offers, thus eliminating most of your competition from retail buyers.

If you want to keep the home (instead of cashing out) you could Refi the home with a traditional 80% loan.

Do we hold onto it, re-fi to 30-years and treat it like a traditional rental?  

So although I'm not interested in ongoing support and that "push" to succeed with traditional brokerage environments, I am looking for some initial basic training on executing transactions and marketing.

I'm going to make an assumption that Keith may be talking about financing a down payment on a deal through a private lender, then financing the remainder of the deal through a traditional bank mortgage.

Seller's asking you for about 5% down, which isn't far off what you're going to pay for 3.5% down plus closing costs on a traditional loan.