FHA is 3.5% down but anything over a 2 unit requires a cash flow test, with rates where they are I hardly ever see anything in Chicago that would work. 

Yesterday I just got with the sellers of this 4 bed, 2 bath house in Kilgore, Texas (close to Tyler) and I am looking at selling it to a cash investor to make a potential profit.

Purchase price: $330,000 Cash invested: $20,000 Sale price: $399,000 Contributors: Peter Vekselman Partner Driven, in collaboration with Seth Choate, successfully completed a fix-and-flip on Tip Top Road, Mariposa, CA.

It would never appreciate to where it would be worthwhile and great cash flows on paper but not gonna happenI would bet this is common in many of these other urban low priced areas.

I have a friend that I just taught amortization to as he is trying to quickly pay off his mother's FHA loan to remove a co-signer, then cash out refi (yes, I explained interest rates right now).

For example, let's say you figure out you have $250k to put towards this project and you want a cash-on-cash return of 15%.

Lots of people have been sold on SFR as investments and are SHOCKED when the reality of repairs, depreciation, tenants, and negative cash flow rear their ugly heads.  

.- My question is do I do a cash out refinance or take out a HELCO (the mortgage broker I used originally advised that)?

Crunched the numbers and it seems to be a decent cash-flowing deal with good appreciation, potentially looking to partner with someone on it!

There is no trick, think of it this way: you have a principal to pay off ($175k, so you could do 175 months x $1,000) and as long as you do the outstanding balance generates interest.Your mortgage payment is PITI, you always have TI, principal you pay in your own pocket and interest is a tax write-off.But from a cash flow point of view paying one off first is better, because you save both the principal and interest portion, which comes out to about $1050.