Buy now or keep renting

[Madeline D.]

Hello there, I am new to this forum and would like to take the time to thank you all for the informations posted on this forum. I recently turned 26y/o. I have been looking at houses and dreaming of becoming a real estate investor since I was 19 but never had the fund or the time to start. I am in a better position now I would like to think. I Graduated 1.5 year ago with a bachelor in nursing and currently hold a decent RN position in a very good hospital in NY. Income is a little above 89k plus I work a second job averaging 20k annually working about 12 hours a week. Currently I am living in the same apartment I lived in NJ during my undergrad which I am paying $780 every month for a 1 bedroom Aprt plus electricity. The thing is I am very tempted to stay in my apartment since my rent is so low and I fixed it nicely when I moved in about 3 years ago. However, I really want to get started in RE. Plus my mom come and stay with me during the weekend so there's not much space when she comes. I am looking to buy my first property by the end of this year. Would like to close on the property by end of November. Oh also for the down payment aspect I was able to save 13k while in college plus an additional 27k from working the past 10 months. I should have a total of 55k in cash by November. I really wanted to know if it would be wise to invest in a 2 family home to live in one and rent the other while saving for a single family in the next 5 years or so. I am a very cautious person I don't really like to live above my mean that's why I have been getting cold feet. The plan was to get pre-approved and contact a Realtor this month but I have postpone it for next month. Please let me know what would be wise to do at this point. Should I wait a bit longer to buy or just dive in now. Everyone keep telling me now is the time to buy. My friend was trying to convince me to buy last year when I only had 18k in cash. I didn't feel too comfortable with such a low fund. All advices are welcome. Thank you.