BUSINESS PLAN. Is this a sound strategy?

[Paul D.]

Hello BP, I'm 26 I'm starting to plan my first deal. I still live at home with my parents but I have thoughts of getting into real estate. The thought of renting drives me nuts and makes no sense to me. I'm getting to the point where I want to move out and so if I do I want to own. Not rent. I want to make a return and not only that but learn real estate investing. I am running my own business at the moment and figure I get into this in hopes to grow a strong portfolio in time and hit my life goals. With all this said. My plan is that I'm thinking of looking into MFHs and house hacking it. Preferably a 4 plex or 3 plex if I can't find anything in the market but I figure more rooms under one roof the better. I am looking in the north jersey market. I figure to FHA loan on one of these homes, live in there build equity until I want to move out(after the year) into another home or buy another investment. My strategy of payment is to find renting numbers so that my tenants pay the mortgage, pmi, taxes. (Let me know if I'm missing anything that's included for debt service). I myself instead of contributing to the "rent" want to instead put money strictly into the principal to get it down as much as I can as fast as I can. That way a huge chunk of my money doesn't go into interest and my debt can be paid down much faster. Does any of this make sense of the way I'm thinking? I am open for all suggestions. I'm looking to make my first deal and just curious how I should finance it. There's only so much money I have saved up so I'm trying to be as creative as I can. Thanks in advance guys in new in this and appreciate the help!

[Samantha Klein]

@Paul D. I like the plan however I would not personally try to accelerate your mortgage payoff, and here's why... If you get an FHA loan at lets say 5%, and you think paying it off sooner is saving you alot of interest, you are right and also wrong. If you can invest the money you were going to use for accelerated payoff into another 3 or 4 plex that earns 10-15% COC return then you are essentially double and tripling your money, and the tenants are still paying your mortgage and building equity. The more buildings you buy like that, the faster you can build down payments and buy more, when you hit your magic number for comfort, then you can pay them off but I still wouldn't pay any extra because mortgage rates are so low that it's not wise to do. If you ever need to borrow against your equity, you pay closing costs, ect whereas if you just invest it, you build more and more income and before you know it, you are sitting pretty.