I'm looking to make my first real estate purchase this year, despite being a "new investor", as a means of learning as quickly as I can by getting my hands dirty and having skin in the game.

The key is do you have skin to put in the game, otherwise it will be tougher to find a deal to get into. 2nd)  do you have car payments that is eating up your income? 

I recently opened a HELOC on my house with same goal as you and am also trying to learn the best way to use it.The HELOC basically allows you to buy very quickly just like cash...so if good deals come up, you have an advantage to get a good cash price and close quick.... then you get a conventional loan for long term financing, but you still have to have 20-25% of "skin" in the deal.You will only get your 20-25% back if you find a great deal or add value to the property and get it appraised for more $$, so you can pull enough cash back out to pay off the HELOC completelyIf you cant do that, you will have basically financed the entire thing...80% conventional and 20% balance in your HELOC that you used as your "cash" down payment

Hello, want to wish the BP community members a Healthy, Happy, Wealthy 2018. 

It is not likely commercial lenders will allow you to acquire a property with none of your own capital as they typically want you to have "skin in the game".

So if you are talking about rental properties, buying with healthy cashflow should equal good value.One other metric to look at is affordability. 

You are asking for a huge discount, but there's many ways to skin a cat.

California is only going to get more expensive where you may not even have enough to get a good skin in the game. 

I feel like I did a great job of vetting this deal so realistically if I need to go the hard money route I am only looking at financing about 30% of the ARV so I feel like the deal was structured right and I also have the right amount of "skin in the game."

I just keep a whole bunch set aside that is more than enough to cover anything that could go wrong and i make sure to live beneath my means so reserves are never a problem.I would encourage the readers of this post to think bigger than "how much from a specific property do I need set aside" and start asking themselves "what is a healthy amount to keep in reserves to cover each property". where the money comes from doesn't matter, just that you have it.