This would be my first sale of a unit so I thought what better way but to reach out to more experienced investors who already have weighed this decision in the past. 

Leland Smith In that case, forget everything in my post, it was a false assumption, I thought the project is in CA since you are in CA.

I just want to get things rolling already..What are your thoughts on what I've been told?

Michael McDevitt I had never thought of doing this.

Was curious on other local BPers thoughts on solid cash-flow neighborhoods around Cincinnati?

Just my thoughts ...

This may be a long post, but I thought it would be good to walk through everything step-by-step, and explain my thinking along the way.If you want to stick with me through it all, here we go:I was not going to be getting a conventional mortgage for my first property for a number of reasons.First, I am still annoyed at the hoops I had to jump through to get a mortgage for my primary residence.Second, my liquid cash was on the lower end.Third, the properties that I would need to start out with would not be financeable anyway.Fourth, my DTI is on the high side, due to the decision that we made to take out a HELOC to complete interior improvements on my primary house.So, I decided that my path was going to be to form a single member LLC, and take a loan from my 401(k) at work to finance the down payment.Since I do not view the 401(k) loan as a long-term solution, I am treating like hard money, and pay it off ASAP.So, my first deal would be a flip, or a rental that was such a good deal, that I could re-fi out and pull all my cash out.I decided to reach out to the commercial lending department of the local credit union, which I am a member.The person I talked to (who became my lender) is fantastic.I told him what types of properties I was looking for, and that I’d look to turn them into rentals, or to flip them.I will never forget his response, which reminded me why I love this credit union.He said:“Typically, the deals you are talking about are much smaller than the deals we like to do.However, we also realize that you can not get to that level unless someone helps you get there.So, if the numbers make sense, we will see if any of our products fit.”Awesome!

I've done ground up development and building, redevelopment, fix/flip, private lending, non performing note workouts, buy/hold rentals, raw land speculating, and probably more if I really thought about all the deals I've done.  

I checked into what I thought was two on a lot in Little Rock, AR:  6618 and 6630 West 30th Street.  

I got the distinct impression from several of them that they thought they may be getting scammed.