How to buy more than 4 houses?

[Quy Huynh]

Hello,

I am having an issue with loans. Conventional loans will only let you go up to 4 houses and that's it - can't buy anymore homes. How can you find lenders that will loan more then that? The most I've heard of is possibly up to 10 homes with a portfolio lender, but what happens after that? Private money only? A hard money lender would not be preferred in this scenario due to the goal of holding these properties long term.

Thank you! 

[Kerry Baird]

Lots of good advice above.  I'll just chime in on big banks.

I just closed a fifth mortgage using Flagstar. As mentioned above, they want 25% down and a higher interest rate than under 5. They also wanted reserves for all our current properties. That meant Flagstar wanted to see six months "liquid reserves" which would cover all PITI expenses for each property we own. They also want to see a detailed picture of money flows, where your down-payment comes from, how liquid your money is (such as in an IRA, they wanted to see what it would take to get a loan from our retirement fund if we counted that money). This is a big lender, and they will go up to 10. There were more hoops to jump through than on previous loans.