buy a house outright or mortgage

[Razer Rey]

i just wanted to know because i have the money to do or should i mortgage multiple homes to rent them out

[Theresa Harris]

If you want to get into real estate, I'd use the money for a down payment.  That leaves the rest of the money for down payments on other homes.  Talk to a loan officer at a bank to see how much you are able to borrow.  Sometimes having a down payment isn't enough, your debt to income ratio also plays a role.  You could buy a small multifamily unit, but if you've never owned rentals before, I would start with one house or a duplex and see how it goes.

Run the numbers to make sure the rent covers all of the costs.

[Michael L.]

Good question! The way I've been thinking about it I'd, to buy out right then pull a Heloc and use that to invest. That method has alot of benefits. #1)you've avoided interest payments by paying out right, 2) you have a primary residence w/o a payment (other than the heloc of course), 3) your investments will be paying you heloc back for you 4)you can avoid all that bank paperwork you'd be doing to get your investment properties, 5)you avoid the banks interest rates, 6)you still have access to use bank loans for even more properties. An I'm thinking the only downside to doin this is the pressure of picking the right investments bc those investment pays your heloc and your heloc controls your primary. I wish you all the best and I hope this was able to help your process in any way...

[Nathan A.]

Run the numbers both ways, calculating your cash flow and return on investment. Buying a house outright is one way to still have positive cash flow in a market like California (assuming that's where you're buying). If you take the same amount of money and split it into down payments on multiple mortgaged properties, make sure the rental income actually covers the mortgage payment and all your expenses. I wouldn't take on negative cash flow just to get more properties.

[John Morgan]

@Razer Rey

I bought my first 2 rentals with cash 8 years ago and didn’t do a thing for two years. Dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I listened to too much Dave Ramsey back then. lol. Since then, I’ve leveraged those two properties to scale up to 17 rentals by recycling that equity to scale up with refinancing and taking on loans. My cash flow went from $1,000/month with two paid off properties to 12k/month net with 17 leveraged properties in just under 8 years. If you want 10x’s the cash flow and generational wealth to pass down, then leverage. If you don’t care about cash flow and cool with just a property or two for fun, then pay cash and not deal with lenders etc.

[Eliott Elias]

Leverage your money, hold cash in this economy. There are opportunities coming. 

[Patrick Drury]

@Razer Rey
Use the money to leverage buying multiple rentals