The common theme I continued to hear from those involved was "house hacking" as an excellent beginner's strategy.

When The Biggest Kid Always Wins The Marbles...Go Play Somewhere Else!

He is an excellent PM for multifamily here.

I just refinanced a rental property last month though, and I chose NOT to take the money out, even though I probably could have gotten about $20K.The reason for this is that I like to be conservative, and I felt - why risk a win?

It is almost always the agent who decides which offer wins.  

WHY because as hardmoney lenders they have more control over there capital.I have been one over the last 30 years my last shop was 35 million so we were not tiny but we were not SEattle funding either.. more on the line of East side or vestus.Borrowers just don't jump ship for 1% or a little cheaper.. they will stick with who will allow them to scale.so when I want to do a 100% deal for one of my long time borrowers no problem. your not going to be able to compete.. the day of 20% plus rates are gone of course.But the portals all want to make 14 to 18% apr just like the HML companies.Can you take market share no doubt but you will have to build it just like I built my companies excellent customer service and flexibility.. right now the Portals like RS have very stringent underwriting they cannot compete with many of the local guys in this market that have 10 to 30 mil to lend. and there is only so much hard money demand in a given market as we know.Vestus and East side get a lot of their business by providing capital to buy at courthouse steps this is highly complicated and lots of moving parts your portals will no way be able to compete at that level.Were I can see a portal doing well though is with bigger funding deals that the HML won't take on.. like larger credit type lines etc we have had some interest from portals for this.. and its not at all competition with the local guys.

Try to make it a win for both sides.

I've primarily been looking in Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich areas due to a desire to find a win-win situation that would help my husband's son (dual citizen who decided England is more "home" than the USA) onto that ladder while being a sound investment for me.

A bank told me I could probably buy a $700,000. house with my excellent credit.The appraisal for the house came in after I filled out the paperwork for the pre-approval at my credit union, so we didn’t know how much the house was worth, but I wanted to get all the pre-approval stuff out of the way because I didn’t know how long it would take.

Excellent discussion!