Live in Arvada, Buy in Pueblo?

[Kayla Davis]

I'm a fan of Lisa Phillips and her investment strategies, involving buying houses under 35k in stable low income neighborhoods, repairing them to last 15+ years and holding them.

Right now I live in Arvada, nearby to Denver, Colorado, and don't make incredible wages over my cost of living. That is to say, savings leftover from my day job are only about 50% of my income, and my pay is not all that high (30k/yr including overtime). I'm reluctant to put down 10k on a tiny town home for personal residence in my local area, I would much rather make a real investment in a house (no HOA) that can be treated more like a property I own professionally, and less like... Just buying a property for personal use.

However, there are pretty reasonably priced small houses in the Pueblo area, about three hours drive from where I live. In the right areas, it seems like the rental market is healthy there as well. I'm still doing research on property management in the area, and other bits of information as needed, but Pueblo is on the table for me for now. The biggest hurdle would be doing any initial property rehab from a distance, since I wouldn't be capable of driving down to Pueblo to supervise repairs.

So I'm wondering what the experienced opinion would be! Would it be better to almost fully finance a property in Denver, owner occupy and try to build a ton of equity, eventually liquidate and invest into multiple other properties? Or to purchase a less pricey small house in Pueblo, give more percentage down, and have cash flow to turn around into more future investments?