I'm in the military, so we have dreams of renting this place out when I get transferred, buying a new one, and so on.In my perfect fantasy world, this method could yield me 3-4 nice single family homes by my mid 30s (in 10 yrs), a good passive income stream by my mid 40s (20 yrs), and a solid retirement foundation for 55+.I have a ton of research to do and this site looks awesome.

I overheard a realtor saying the guidelines are getting very tight on this method, I'm wanting to see if it's still possible to do.I'm purchasing a home for 13k putting 7k in it, I see the homes in the area are selling for 64k, and my mentor has 2 on the street that appraised for $67,000.

But I'm open to learning other methods, too: flipping & wholesales, short sales, etc.I look forward to learning from all of you and then hopefully putting that knowledge to work.

Events at your property such as a tenant getting hurt or alike are more of the liability concerns you are dealing with.

It helps, but there's are other methods to find leads.

As to pre-payment penalties, you need to check state laws concerning residential or private financing transactions.

If you own a property and you've been there a year as owner occupied you can move out and get a LL policy on that property without concern.

Post your concerns, chime in on threads, network like crazy and prosperous investing to you.

Are you concerned with paying your Realtor when doing a deal with a private seller?

That would be my main concern here...not whether you can get 4.25 instead of 4.375 (although you should shop around to other lenders unless you have some loyalty to this one for some reason).One thing to consider, it's the beginning of the year, so you'll likely have to pay the entire years worth of taxes now...this could be a good chunk of money.