Making First Investment Decision

[Tristan Romero]

Hi Everyone my name is Tristan Romero and I am currently living in San Jose CA with my parents paying no rent. My girlfriend and I have saved $30,000 in cash reserves and I could get another $10,000 from borrowing against my 401k. I am currently in the process of becoming a Real Estate Agent and weighing these two options.

Option 1 Move to the general Sacramento Area to house hack a 2-4 multifamily unit house using an FHA loan allowing me to keep a good portion of my saving for reserves or any cosmetic work.  And after one year repeating the same process.

Option 2 Stay living with my parents paying little to no rent and invest out of state while being an agent in the Bay Area collecting bigger commission checks to purchase other properties.  

In whatever option I choose I am hoping to scale quickly and create a a massive real estate portfolio.

Thanks for any advice anyone shares in advance!!!

[James Dainard]

Quote from @Tristan Romero:

Hi Everyone my name is Tristan Romero and I am currently living in San Jose CA with my parents paying no rent. My girlfriend and I have saved $30,000 in cash reserves and I could get another $10,000 from borrowing against my 401k. I am currently in the process of becoming a Real Estate Agent and weighing these two options.

Option 1 Move to the general Sacramento Area to house hack a 2-4 multifamily unit house using an FHA loan allowing me to keep a good portion of my saving for reserves or any cosmetic work.  And after one year repeating the same process.

Option 2 Stay living with my parents paying little to no rent and invest out of state while being an agent in the Bay Area collecting bigger commission checks to purchase other properties.  

In whatever option I choose I am hoping to scale quickly and create a a massive real estate portfolio.

Thanks for any advice anyone shares in advance!!!

 Hey Tristan,

If you have the option, the flexibility, and the property to be able to take advantage of a higher leverage position using an owner-occupied loan you should go for that option 100%. You will exponentially increase your returns that way. You can always invest out-of-state later.

You're going to want to scale by getting larger multifamily assets under your control. Start with what you can house hack then 1031 the ones you accumulate to roll the equity into larger deals to keep your ROE return on equity where you want it.

It sounds like you're doing all the right things!

Best of luck!