Although I'm looking into looking at entering the market soon, I actually had this discussion with a friend of mine and he was wowndering what he should do with his capital and how to approach his first deal or two.

It sounds like you have a good plan to approach starting a real estate business...understanding the fundamentals and your local market will make you a much better investor.

Rehabbing is something I KNOW I'll love, especially from a design perspective.

I have heard both approaches - to look for a top listing agent to refer sellers to that have (or believe they have) properties that will sell for retail values.

Here in Colorado several local banks will underwrite HELOCs for over five properties (the properties must be located within their designated area).

Curtis Harris if you are looking at this as your homestead, and maybe you are self employed, or there are reasons you can't get financed now...then I would approach listed owners or FSBO owners in the area (school district) you are looking for and explain that you can pay top dollar but you need 24 months to cash them out...or whatever.

Lynn M.What I have seen on Harp 2.0, is that it was designed to help the lenders maybe even more than the homeowners.

Also, to make it more interesting there is a tenant in place already.Let me know if there is a common way to approach this scenario.

A friend approached me to help him with a property he inherited from his mom passing where a developer wanted to buy from him for commercial development.The developer after me catching everything in the contract to tie up the property with the seller asked me to work with him on the other parcels as he would rather be working with me than against me assembling the properties.Off I went after that for about 3 years in land development and then went into existing investment properties.I did things kamikaze style and figured them out on my own through the school of hard knocks.In your situation if you are focusing on apartments I would do the following.

Unless you take that approach, you won't really be confident that the facts are accurate and complete, or the reasoning in the analysis is sound.Second, while I agree that the lender will have its own underwriting criteria and that satisfying those criteria is what matters most, that doesn't mean a good analysis and presentation are superfluous.