Most rookies think you need a mountain of cash to buy your first property, but in reality, the financing strategy you choose matters more than the size of your bank account.

And today we'll break down five rookie-friendly ways to fund your first real estate deal in 2025.

From low money-down FHA loans to creative financing methods that let you bypass the banks all together.

We'll help you get your hands on the money you need to get these deals closed.

This is the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. I'm Ashley Care. And I'm Tony J. Robinson. And with that,

let's jump into financing path number one, which is FHA and conventional loans.

I think a lot of rookies make the mistake of hearing those loan products and assuming that those can't be used at all for properties that actually generate revenue as rentals.

And while it's true for an FHA that you have to live in it, it doesn't necessarily mean

that property can't also generate revenue. And we'll talk about some of the strategies there,

but conventional loans, those can be for traditional primary residences, or you can use a

conventional loan for an investment property. So there is, I think, some flexibility around

these loans. Going back to the FHA example,

maybe let's just actually break both of these down before we even get into the examples. When we talk

FHA, you always make the joke. What did you think FHA stood for when you first heard it?

Yeah, I honestly thought it was like it was only like first time home buyer. Like it had to be your first time ever buying a house to get this loan. And I thought that for a very, very long time whenever I heard FHA. Yeah. And in reality, it's not necessarily for first time homebuyers. In fact, it's not, you don't have to be a first-time home buyer to use this, but it's just a federally backed loan that gives you typically a lower interest rate. Three and a half percent is the most common. But there are a lot of, so the FHA loan, one of the benefits is that it comes with the lower down payment. Typically, three and a half percent is what most people are quoted or why they opt to go the FHA route. But it also comes with a lot of hoops you have to jump through.

And as a buyer, that might not seem like that big of a deal. It's like, hey, I've got this FHA loan.

But on the seller's perspective, if someone's bringing an FHA loan compared to a conventional loan,

sometimes they might opt for the conventional because it comes with less hoops. There are FHA inspections that need

to be done. And if the seller's not willing to make those repairs or to bring it up to, quote, unquote,

code for the FHA, it can't cause some concerns. Conventional loans are a little bit more flexible in terms of what you can buy, right? You can

buy properties maybe wouldn't qualify for FHA financing. So when you think about conventional

loans, these are the loans that still have some sort of government backing. So like if you've

...