If you throw a small car loan in there as well (as long as this doesn't kill your debt-to-income ratio) you can expect to be in the 660 range within 6-12 months assuming you're starting with absolutely no credit (good or bad).Lenders will also want to see reserves (funds left in your account after closing), FNMA requires 6 months PITI for loans on investment properties.Hope this helps!

Everyone I have encountered here has been very helpful and you will gain alot of information here.I am in Southern California and this market is out of my price range so I got brave and ventured into an area most people run from but it was what I could afford at the time and after a few hard lessons (read: expensive) I now have everything up and running smoothly and am now activly adding to my portfolio.

Probably be stuck in the 2-4 unit range.

We have 20 properties ranging in age from 1 to 90 years old.

It's kind of shocking to ride through what used to be some of the rougher parts of the city and see such a diversity of people living there now.

They have a ton information about different strategies from a huge diversity of people.

Joy of working short sales I guess.Rough numbers are:Purchase: $180kRehab: $8kSale: $250kI was gonna change the floorplan some and update more and sell in the $275k range, but I think the better play is to just do paint, carpet, clean up and flip it quickly for $30k or so after holding/sales costs.Had some new private lenders not come through so its either find some money or a partner or go institutional hard money...which doesn't appeal to me.Open on terms and split depending on how the work/money/experience shakes out.

Please get preapproved first then you'll know what you can look for what price range you need to be in to give you more negotiating power.

Taking into account that you get what you pay for, would you have some starter,mid-range, and bellsandwhistles recommendations that you'd like to share?

Even IF you could fix it all for $15k plus the PP of $8k for a total of $23k, you'll be lucky to get $550 rent [on occasion between vacancies and vandal visits].Unless you have experience in this type of home I would make like Forrest Gump... and run away from this money pit.I tried this price range of homes when I first went full time a few years back and hated it.