Ok folks, Im frustrated. Please help!

[Norman Perkins]

I am reading, studying the market, watching interest rates, basically doing everything I possibly can to get started in this, but I feel like I am spinning my wheels. I apply for an equity loan to use as my down payment on my first deal, but my debt to income is too high so it was not approved. I am really getting frustrated and that is not what I need right now. lol....anybody out there with some ideas on creative financing to come up with a down payment on a really good property?? I have really good credit, just my debt to income is a little high. Specifically, credit card balances. That is all that is stopping me from getting started.

[Trevor Schumann]

In my humble opinion, if you have enough credit card debt to be putting you outside lenders DTI requirements, you should consider putting your emphasis into paying down personal debt for a while before entering real estate. There are always creative financing options, but at the end of the day as greedy as the bank is, they still won't give you the money for one simple fact, you are already in over (or at least up to) your head in their opinion. Most failure in businesses is due to being underfunded and I don't think real estate is any exception. If your DTI was out of whack because of other cash flowing properties that you hadn't held long enough to count towards income that's one thing, but if the problem is consumer debt that's another. I'd put more emphasis into thinking of creative ways to eliminate the credit card debt. You might consider taking a loan from your 401k to payoff cc debt if that is an option for you. They will typically loan you up to half the accounts value and while you do pay interest, you essentially pay it to yourself. I am in a similar position. I know I wont be in good financial position to make my first move in real estate for about 6 more months. Instead of viewing that as a disadvantage I view it as a blessing because I am using the time to learn every thing possible, and will hopefully avoid many mistakes by taking the time to learn from the mistakes of others. (It's much cheaper) I'd recommend you take a similar approach.