Should a newbie start small?

[Frank DiPerna]

Hi everyone, and thanks for reading my first post!

I am looking into making my first real estate investment - a buy an hold property - and I have a question. Not only am I a novice investor (aside from buying and selling my own home), I don't have any ancillary experience either, i.e. I'm not a real estate agent, contractor, plumber, property manager, or anything like that. So that being said, I have found what appears to be a potentially good investment but it is a 10-unit building (8 residential units and 2 commercial units) and I'm not sure if it's a good idea to start off with a big property like this. Assuming the numbers look good, does anyone have any experience or advice with respect to whether it's better to start off with a smaller, less expensive property to get my feet wet and gain some experience or should I just go for it?