A more appropriate post would relate to raising money to buy real estate and not be so short sighted and focus solely on the meager amount of money it takes to put a property under contract.

As an MTR I can get $2,200 but I need to pay an average of $200 for utilities and an extra $100 for vacancy reserves (I self manage so no increase there).

effectively, you'd either need to look for a lender that would let you use the other property as collateral (cross) so that you can avoid actually taking the cash-out (this is rare in terms of institutional DSCR lenders, but fairly common in the hard money or private money space)...

It never hurts to be conservative on the first investment though, so congrats again on making the leap and the killer returns!

So, in the short term, I always encourage people to save, save, save.  

So please take my words with grain of salt.1.

so i just worry about new investors who haven't internalized (yet?)

The garage probably doesn't have any plumbing, so this is from a roof leak.The wall probably has mold inside it.

I want to grow my business so i can eventually buy a rental property, or convert the house i own currently. 

In my view, the entire side fence is still entirely inside my property, so all improvements belong to me (even though he paid for the back part of the side fence).