Hard money lenders are a common way of financing fixer upper properties.

I am looking for a home that is mostly cosmetic work and nothing structurally as it's my first investment property that I plan on living in for at least a year before I try to rent it out.The goal is to purchase a cosmetic fixer-upper using an FHA 203k loan, after living in it for a year, look to rent it out and continue onto the next project and learn as I go.Please and thank you!!!

You should carry $1 Million on your property policy and another $2 Million as a liability umbrella.What every body is parroting may not always be the best choice.

That assumes buying a fixer upper.

No body bids except us so we get title.The next day while I’m at the house a couple stops by and tells me they had a contract with the owner to purchase.

We are pretty handy people so we were thinking of rehabbing our first fixer upper on our own and using a refi to get the best rent rates we can (depends on the extent of the rehab).

@Gunnar Linden - Sell your current house with free capital gains (since you lived there 2/5 years) (unless you’re confident you can rent it to someone good for at least $19,000/year (1%), and buy a new foreclosure/fixer upper to do it again.

The upper middle income tenants will be sucked into those because of rent breaks.

Literally one side of the street can have $1,000,000 homes and the other has $45k fixer uppers that no one wants. 

If you are looking for a fixer upper and plan on refinancing out in 6-12 months put the minimum down but if you are looking for a a buy and hold with little value add put the 20% down to eliminate the PMI.