New young investor looking to get into first investment property

[Josh Sidhu]

Hi everyone!

My name is Josh I am a new member based in Washington. I'm just trying to get started on my real estate investing journey, I graduated about a year and a half ago and was fortunate enough to get a job right out of college. I have been living at home to save as much money as possible to build capital for an investment. I have roughly 70k saved up now and am on my journey to learn more about finding good real estate deals.

I have a couple of ideas in mind for my first strategy. The first would be to get into a duplex using Fannie Mae's new loan option of putting 5% down and renting out both sides of the property. A lower risk investment, however, I will end up paying a premium for the property being it will be a turn-key rental.

The second would be to get into a fixer-upper property, pay significantly lower than market value for the property, and rehab it. Ideally, even get a property with an extended backyard where I could build a detached accessory dwelling unit (DADU) on the same property. This approach would require more money and potentially have more risk as far as getting the right team of contractors to rehab and build out the additional unit but at the same token a higher-yielding investment. 

I would love to hear any feedback on my strategies, if there may be any better approaches I can take, and any tips on finding good deals.

Thanks!

[Jake Andronico]

@Josh Sidhu

Congrats on saving $70K!! That's awesome, and a great place to be. Especially at your age! 

When you're talking about putting 5% down and renting both sides of the property, you do have to live in one of the units, so are you saying that you'll have roommates? 

If so, I definitely agree that this is a powerful strategy and has changed my life already (I've done it twice). 

The DADU strategy sounds interesting and intriguing, but is likely a lot more complicated and expensive than it may seem at first. If you know anyone in your area that's done it before, that's a huge plus. 

Also, if you're looking for potentially low interest rate mortgages - you may be able to assume some VA/FHA. My understanding is this process isn't overly difficult, and with $70K you may be able to find some where you can assume the mortgage and have the delta between the loan balance and the purchase price.

You can use Zillow key word search to see when agents put "assumable" in the description of the property: 

There may also be a middle ground where you can find a property that is not turn key but also not a super fixer, and do some work yourself (this is what I did). 

I wish you the best of luck, and congratulations again!!