23 Year Old Starting Out

[Mitch Reaume]

I'm 23 years old and married and looking at getting into real estate investing, namely rental properties, on a limited budget.  Any suggestions on the best way to start getting into this, I've been reading around getting some suggestions but would love to hear someone's personal take on the best way to get into rental properties.  Over the past few years I've been getting a grasp on stocks and mutual funds, but feel like rental properties would be more my style of investing if I were given the option.

[Mike Sattem]

Hey @Mitch Reaume ,

Not that long ago I was in your same situation. After losing $12K in one day trading Goldman Sachs, I confirmed that real estate was the way to go :) Definitely seek out a mentor, as buying them lunch a couple of times is way cheaper than screwing up a remodel or buying a non-cashflowing property. If you can get your wife on board I would definitely recommend buying your first place as a multi-family. Most folks only stay in their first home for a short time anyway, and this is the best way to get into a rental property with low or no money down depending upon your loan type. My wife was not OK with this a the time, and she know understands why it would have been a good idea.

If you don't have kids yet, you may look at "house jumping", by buying a home, living in it a year, and then looking at buying another as your personal residence, living in that a year, and then jumping again. This is a great way to accumulate several rentals with not a ton of money down, you can gain some equity by working on the property while you are living there, and it won't be a huge inconvenience on your young family. I can say from experience, once you have a couple of kids, house jumping is not a good idea.