Growth Strategy to 50 - at 11 need some advice.

[John Gunderson]

Hello, We're a growing real estate investment company on the KY side of Cincinnati. I'm posting my strategy thinking the community may have some advice. A BPpodcast junkie I know there are some creative folks out there. We have bought 5 SFR, 1 Duplex, and 1 4unit. 11 units total. Paid cash for purchase and rehabs on all. Great cash flow, enough for 1 partner to go full time. Basically the BRR....R with the last R being the sticking point. Our goal is to get to 50 units, and can average about 1 door per month ready for rent when we are in full swing. I'd like to put some debt on the portfolio and keep growing. I've talked to a handful of different lenders and I have run in to two specific problems: 1. Refi's want to lend minimum $70k at 80%LTV. Most of ours we buy less than $25k/ door + $5-10k rehab for ARV $50k-$75k. So we get hung up their. 2. I had a commercial portfolio loan setup and during underwriting the game changed from 80% LTV on market value to 80% of at risk equity(purchase price+documented repairs). We put the breaks on that because it undermines the value add strategy we're executing. So that brings me to the aspect of the strategy I'm working on. How to unlock the equity in our current bldgs. We are setup with a community bank for a few mortgages for $100k plus type deals going forward. But we like the speed and efficiency of working from cash, and the profitability of the smaller deals. We'll keep doing them if we can make them work. I suspect the deals under $75k are so profitable because they are such a pain to get financed... once you get in the deal access to the equity seems limited. So it's a problem I didn't expect, great credit and a good job, real estate exp. Struggling to find a loan product that fits the strategy. I've been trying to find a portfolio lender I could build a relationship with and grow with a LOC based on our current portfolio. Use the LOC as working capital. The $50k-$75k house valuations have been the hang-up. At this point it seems like the obvious strategy is to move to higher value deals, and sell off the lower value deals to unlock the equity....but I'd like to keep them. Any suggestions or critique of our strategy would be appreciated! Also, feel free to message me with ideas or product suggestions. Thanks, John