Looking for advice on making a move on my first property

[Liam Smith]

To cut to the chase, I am 23 years old and live in the NYC area. I have realistically up to 45-40k to spend on my first investment property at this time, maybe more if absolutely needed. My house budget is 200-250k and I am looking to invest within 1-2 hours of the NYC area (maybe 3 if needed), as I plan to continue to live and work in NYC for pursuable future. I do not have a car though, and want to the avoid the expense if possible. I am interested in short term rentals, but also open to long term rentals. My goal is to have 3-5 properties (more if-needed) and be able to retire my partner and I within 10 years. I want to be hands on, and love exploring markets and thinking through how to set up my operations to be profitable. I just get into analysis paralysis and cannot decide the best rout to go into to start my journey. Should I go shorter, longer, or both? Whats a good system to achieve my goals? Glamping is also interesting t me. I want to be hands off eventually, but will willing to work to build a system that requires <20 hours of work a week.

[Joe Villeneuve]

The reason why you are stuck, is you really don't have a plan or goals established.  Also, you've laid out a series of disjointed steps to follow, but without a set plan or goals, those steps are invalid.

Goals must be specific and financial...as in dollars (not percentages).  They are based on your financial needs, and like a said they are specific to those financial needs.  Retiring early, getting out of the rat race, etc... are NOT goals...they are results of what you can do when you achieve your goals.  There's a difference.

The plan is also specific.  They are based on your financial goals, and are a series of steps (also financial) where each step leads to the next step, until you've reached your financial goals.  This is much like a series of prerequisites in college with the goal of getting your degree.  Each step leads to the next, and like those college classes, are prerequisites for the next step.

What you need to do next is to learn as many strategies as possible (flipping, holding, BRRRRR, etc...are NOT strategies). Strategies are how you execute each financial step. Then learn how to analyze Markets, not properties,...markets. The way this works is you find a market where the properties in that market, paired up with a specific strategy (or more than one strategy), will deliver the financial required criteria from where you are in the timeline of your financial plan. All three, Plan, Market Analysis and Strategies, must work together at the same time.