Strategy needed for new investor in DFW.

[Chris C.]

All, I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and would like to start investing in real estate. I'm mainly interested in creating cash flow and long-term wealth. Right now the market seems saturated with investors to the point where a property comes on the market and is bought so quickly for cash that it seems people are over bidding on properties paying too much just to get the deal and by the time they rehab they actually lose money on the flip. Right now it is a seller's market so prices are high. Everything I've read says that you are supposed to wait until the market is a buyer's market but I really want to start investing. I had an idea to build a fourplex and live in one unit and rent the other three. Unfortunately all the loan products available are mostly for single family residence that have a high LTV for example 5% conventional and 3.5% FHA. There is very little support for high LTV loan products in regards to building Multiplex because banks see them is high risk. I have some liquidity but I'm not rich. To build a fourplex it will probably cost me in the neighborhood of $500,000 to $600,000 and the best loan product I found is 85% LTV which is not bad but to be honest will burn up most of my liquidity so once I'm in this deal I would have to wait for a while in order to do my next deal. I feel like when things are too complicated they are not meant to be and the simplest things most of the time the right answer. What I would like is a simple strategy that won't burn up most of my liquidity I can rinse and repeat to build cash flow and wealth. I like the idea of building a single family residence and then renting it but I don't want to build these things all around the city and have to be driving around as a landlord all day. Also I really don't know what the rental market is for a single-family residence when you have so many apartment complexes going up with all the amenities that I would be competing with. And with rates so low these days who would rent a house when you can buy one for cheaper? As a first time investor I would really appreciate it if somebody could help me with a strategy where I could get started. I thought one would be interesting to partner with a developer 50/50 on deals that way we are building the property as cheap as we can is it supposed to me hiring a developer who will most likely have me paying premiums on everything. Thanks, Christopher