St. Louis investing help

[DJ Cummins]

Hello friends of the midwest! I recently used conventional financing to purchase a four plex on the Illinois side of the river, where I am from. I am actually ordering @Brandon Turner 's book on low and no money down today, but i am wondering if anyone has experience using any of these techqniques. Has anyone used Hard Money Loans? Do they do 100% financing on those? Just wondering about some alternative methods. I would like to keep growing, but have used most of my available funds for this first purchase(20% down).

[Jon Holdman]

I purchased two rentals some years ago using hard money. Some HMLs require specific down payments, some will lend up to a specific percentage of ARV. If you can find the right deal, its possible to buy a house with hard money, fix it up, rent it, and then refinance. That seems to have picked up the acronym BRRR - buy, rehab, rent, refi.

Its tough to find deals good enough to do this with none of your own cash.  But it is possible to use this to buy junky houses and fix them up.  Those are often the better deals.

Do be aware you will likely have to wait at least six months and maybe a year to do the refi.  Many lenders have a "seasoning period" before they will let you use a new appraisal for the refi.