First investment (multi-home) property, close to home or in a cheaper market?

[Yang Zeng]

Hi all, first time posting here.

I have been listening to the BiggerPocket podcast for a few months and would like to get my feet wet.

There is an opportunity, close to where I live in Los Angeles, which asks for 2M. In our market, it's better to pay 30% down to secure a loan. This basically means we need to spend all of our cash reserve in the downpayment.

I also heard that in states like Ohio and New Mexico, you could find good properties with possibly cashflow under 60k. With what we have, we could pay cash for those properties, so that we can avoid the high interest rate nowadays. But it take a lot of luck and effort to choose the right market to invest in, and managing an off state property is also challenging.

I would like to hear people's take on this topic.

Thanks!

Yang