As part of the down payment, I moved $15k that was saved in a separate savings account (by depositing $1500 from our joint account per month) back to our joint account.

@Alexander Phippen this is always an issue for multifamily investors as we constantly are saving for big down strokes.

They get nervous the everyday systems will breakdown when they start using them constantly.

I constantly see new posts from members saying things likeGot a sweet deal, but no money.

At the beginning, we had a lot of things go wrong that we honestly weren't prepared for (more deferred maintenance than we realized, constant/different water leaks that still haunt my dreams, challenging tenants that we inherited), but the rent from 3 of the units paid our mortgage and we had a place to live for "free" so the pros outweighted the cons. 

Here is an article I would encourage you to read on Joint Ventures.

We have begun doing joint venture investments with other private real estate investment funds, allowing us to increase our maximum size loan from $3 million to $7 million, thereby significantly increasing deal flow.I’m sure much of this can be applied to the residential note space.

Quick tips would be to find a partner to lend or JV (joint venture) the deal with you.

It is not due to earthquakes..it is due to the constant contraction and expansion of the soil underneath many cities.

I have bought and sold 3 houses already (ones that I lived in while I was on active duty) and during the time I owned each I was constantly doing my own renovations and looking for ways to improve them.