Recommended Property Type for First Time Investor?

[Briana Martin]

My husband and I live in a home we own in Southern California and are looking to buy our first investment property. We are parents of 2 kids under 2, so we need our first property to be as low risk and hands off as possible. We are not willing to house hack (where you rent out rooms in your house). Though I do like the idea of buying a property and renting out individual bedrooms (is that still called house hacking?) but not living in the property. I like the idea of buying something cheap in the midwest, however with such low cash flow, I imagine we'd have to buy tons and tons of those to make it worthwhile. We are leaning towards buying a property through Memphis Investment Properties and using a HELOC for the down payment. Any advice or suggestions?