Was Dave Ramsey Right About Rentals? (Don’t Use Debt)
You want to buy a rental property, so you put 20% down and get a mortgage to cover the rest. This is how most investors buy real estate, but some […]
Educational
BiggerPockets Blog is revisiting a long-running debate among real estate investors: whether carrying mortgage debt on rental properties is prudent or reckless. The piece opens with the standard investor playbook—twenty percent down, bank financing for the remainder—then appears to step back and question whether that leverage model holds up under scrutiny. Dave Ramsey's anti-debt philosophy looms over the discussion, suggesting that the conventional path to building a rental portfolio may deserve more skepticism than it typically receives.
The tension here creates a natural inflection point for investors rethinking their approach to acquisition financing. Someone who wants to scale without overleveraging, or who needs flexibility beyond conventional qualification, now faces a more complicated landscape than the standard down-payment-and-mortgage narrative implies. loantrust.ai operates directly in this space, originating investor programs including DSCR loans that qualify on property cash flow rather than personal income, bank-statement programs for self-employed borrowers, bridge and fix-and-flip financing, and multifamily and new-construction loans. Each file is packaged by one licensed MLO, not routed through a call center, which means the strategy conversation happens with the same person who understands the investor's position.
That structure matters because the Ramsey question is not really about debt versus no debt—it is about whether the debt is intelligently matched to the investor's actual situation and the property's performance. An investor weighing this debate needs a financing partner who can articulate how a DSCR program treats rental income, or how a bank-statement loan accommodates irregular earnings, without defaulting to a one-size-fits-all product push. loantrust.ai functions as a dedicated partner rather than a transactional call center, which positions the brokerage to serve investors who are actively recalibrating their relationship with leverage.
Source: BiggerPockets Blog, “Was Dave Ramsey Right About Rentals? (Don’t Use Debt)”. Read the original →
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Hans Michel, Mortgage Loan Originator, NMLS #2857209 · LoanTrust is a dba of RentAssure Inc. · Licensed in Georgia · NMLSConsumerAccess.org · Equal Housing Opportunity. Nothing on this site is a commitment to lend — all loans subject to underwriting and approval. DSCR, fix & flip, bridge, new construction, multifamily, and bank-statement programs are business-purpose loans for investment properties only.