beginner looking for different takes & ideas

[Thomas Parrott]

Ill start with my current situation and mindset

Im 22, I bought my first investment property 10 months ago.

A duplex in my hometown (spartanburg, sc) for 108,000

I put 27,xxx down, and I currently owe 69k on it.

So far I have been lucky, having 100% occupancy and only 300$ in repairs.

It has generated a little over 250 dollars a month (I lose 95 a month having it managed by a company)

What I have been doing is putting all of the profit towards the principle, plus adding any where from 500-1200 additional to the principal each month.

My theory on this plan was hammer it, get it paid off, then buy another, do the same except id have all of the flow from the already payed off duplex on top of my additional principal payment.

I was looking at having my current duplex paid off in about 3 years and 2-5 months (depending on occupancy)

Now....I have done the math several times, and tried slight changes to my original line of thought and I get the same outcome every time.....

It will take forever to get big returns paying them off in full one at a time.

I think I was being overly safe.

Rental property is what I want to focus on.

I can see eventually getting into commercial property as well (still rental)

Id like for some experienced people to advise me on different ways to go about this.

Something id like some criticism on is what I've been thinking about latelt:

Lower end properties.

Im not sure if I could get a loan on 22k (for a duplex) but im going to find out

But from what I have been seing, if you can keep people in them, the yields are much better than what im getting on my 108000 investment (which if both sides are rented brings in 1100 dollars a month)

The area that it is in is populated....its just....lower end property as stated above

Im not sure what comes into play when you get in that area, and if that's where I should be looking to move to with my investments but that's why im asking

(In theory I could put 25% down on a lot more 20k duplexes than 108000 duplexes, and the mortgage would be next to nothing if I could get a loan, one unit would cover the insurance and mortgage payment with ease)

Wow, long first post, =P

Thanks in advance