New to RE Investing: Starting out with paid off property

[Caden Gore]

Good evening.

I'll try and keep this as brief as I can. I'm interested in getting into RE Investing and I've been doing a lot of research lately reading books, watching videos, etc. I'm 28 years old in Jacksonville, I have a job that pays a little north 100k a year, a 750+ credit score, no debt, and no wife/kids. I was looking into buying multi-family homes and renting them out to get started. Here's where my situation gets interesting. My grandparents put their home in my name last year before my grandfather passed. My grandmother still lives in it as a tennant currently, but it's mine. The home is fully paid off. Everyone I talk/listen to says the first home is alays the hardest and here I've had it fall into my lap like I skipped a few steps. So my question is what are my options here? Good job, excellent credit, no debt, no one to take care of other than myself. How could I use this property to aquire a multi-family investment property? Would a CO Refi be best? HELOC? And could I use it to buy multiple properties if the math works out?

Thanks

[Joe Norman]

Reiterrating @Jeremy H.'s theme here, don't do anything that will put grandma's roof in jeopardy. I've seen a lot of people scale too quickly, fail, and start over (myself included). Its one thing when its your money/credit/houses at risk, but when its your grandma's house (that she gifted to you, none the less), I wouldn't risk doing anything to jeopardize her living situation.

You have great income for a young man, buckle down for a year and save the $30-40k you'll need for a down payment on a turn key (or expenses for a BRRRR deal HML). Keep doing that until grandma moves on from the home, then you can consider leveraging that equity.

Good luck!