One day my senior year of high school, our math teacher stopped class and asked us if any of us wanted to be millionaires when we grew older.

I hear all the time from investors and real estate agents to stay away from the big banks and go with local lenders, and I just want to share my own personal experience that contradicts that advice.First of all, some background information: I was a Canadian citizen working in the US since 2009 under a H1B visa, and I had built good credit and had a good stable income.

If there are more than one loan, there is a senior and a junior.

Lot can be done by private citizens and businesses. 

When NOLA flooded we had 250,000 of that city's "finest" citizens move to Houston and take up residence.

I've spoke to First Citizen's quite a bit about different investment loans and I've been very impressed with them.

If the 2nd mortgage(junior lien) goes to foreclosure and there is a surplus of funds after being sold to the bidder, will the Senior lien receive any of the surplus?

One of my renters is a senior on low income and does not use automated systems.

I won't say it's impossible (just because I live on East Coast around DC, where house prices are irrationally over-inflated and where wages of the majority of people are less than one eighth of the median house price, I won't say that the entire US is the same), but you will have to do some leg work to find it, and you would have better chances in one of the more average Citizen oriented parts of the country, such as in Mid-West, than on East/West Coast.Still, your chances to make things work are a lot higher than mine, a home owner with $170K in available resources (including hard money) for investment property, because: 1. you can take advantage of the First Time Home buyer options , and you can also qualify for 203K loan (FHA), these are great loan programs because you get a conventional 30 year mortgages with low down-payment and low monthly payment, and the worst thing that can happen to you is that you will end up owning your home and building an equity in the long term.

I'm a not a US citizen, and if I one day leave the US, the income of my US rental (which I hold in my name) will be taxed at a withholding rate of 30%.