I have started out in real estate investment by accident, by having to move from a terrible real estate market.  I have thoroughly enjoyed though the cashflow that I have received in my first rental property.  Since then I have acquired a few more properties. 

My community is a growing fast and equity is going up! and up! and up!  Is it possible/legal to keep buying my personal residence, holding it for 1 year, renting it out, and then buying my next personal property, and then doing this same process over and over again.  

The purpose...to avoid the 20% down on investment properties!  Or is there something I am missing!?  I figure if I can keep getting in homes for 3.5% to 5%, instead of 20% that would save me a lot of capital.  

Once I get enough capital to start buying outright?  any ideas, thoughts, concerns, etc?

Hi Jason,

Yes, as long as you don't acquire a loan that forbids it. When I purchased my first home in 2011 FHA had a special loan program that was 1% down that I took advantage of and moved in. I had initially planned on living in the house for a long time and keeping it for the rest of my life because it was such a nice house and I got an amazing deal! My company went bankrupt and I decided to sell my house 6 months later even though FHA required me to live in the house for 1 year I had an unusual circumstance and was able to sell early. Long story short, yes! I have since then done your scenario two other times. Purchase a house with low down payment of 5% or less and then renting it out and buying another one a year later. I am working on my third house now. The only downside to this strategy is that if house prices are shooting up as fast as you say by the time you save the money or are able to move it may not be worth it anymore. In Arizona a lot of the houses have shot up fast as well and now it's a normal market again, you have to market/network to find amazing deals.

-John

Hi Jason - Creative idea if you have lots of flexibility in your lifestyle and don't mind moving often.   Again, always be clear on your loan requirements so that you adhere to them. 

I'm not a mortgage broker, so don't take my word as gospel, but it's my understanding that with FHA loans you need to live in the property for 2 years in order to avoid having to put 20% down. If you're going to operate on a 1-year timeline you might have to refinance so you have 20% in the property before you could move to the next, but, again, I could be wrong about this. Talk to your lender, obviously. On whether this is possible, I've read stories from other BPers who've used this strategy and they said it worked for them.

Best of luck!

Thank you all for the great information.  This is kinda what I have thought, but I have not seen any evidence of this online anywhere!  I appreciate all of your quick responses!