Aspiring St George Investor

[Jaxx Baxter]

Hi I'm new to the real estate game but I'm super excited to get into it. I've got 20-25k to put down on a property and would really like to get into a duplex or something very similar to that. I'm 21 years old and actually still live with my parents so I don't have to worry about paying rent at the moment so I'd love to buy a property and rent it for 1-2 years and then move into half of it from there. The only issue is there's no multi family's available in southern Utah. I have thought about getting a list of local owners from the county clerks office but would it be more effective to just buy out of state where there are already properties available? then when I'm ready to move out in 1-2 years I could buy another property and just continue to rent the duplex?  Alternatively I could buy a single family, I'm just not sure that rent is high enough in my are to cashflow day one given how expensive southern Utah is. Any advice would be awesome, thanks!