23 Year Old College Grad Getting out into the RE World

[Jordan Coughenour]

Hello,

As per Josh and Brandon's encouragement on a podcast, I am making a post to get more involvement on the BP community!

A little about me:

I just received a degree in Construction Management from Colorado State University, and I am moving down to Denver this Fall to work for a consulting company doing construction consulting for large commercial and industrial construction projects. I have never owned any property before. I am a newbie.

I want to get going with my own real estate side endeavors that would ideally become my long term passive income.

Here's my finance snapshot:

-single

-$60k/year salary

-$25k student debt

-$16k car loan

-$3k in savings

-$2k credit debt (argh spring break 2016! - paying that off with my $5k signing bonus immediately)

-credit about 680

I met with a real estate agent yesterday and while I was planning on renting for a year, she was making it seem that there are a lot of options for me to get into a house by the end of this year. I also don't want to throw away $900/mo at rent for a year while I could own.

-FHA @ 3.5% down

-A new type of 1% down conventional loan she told me about on single family only

-FHA on single family up to a 4-plex so that I may rent out the other units.

-USDA loan at 0% down on single family home only

What sounds most attractive to me is getting an FHA loan for a du/tri/quadplex in order to create that passive income. However, I don't want to be overleveraged my first year.

The market in Denver and Colorado in general seems to be at a crest, and I don't want to necessarily buy at the top of the market. On the other hand I don't want to pay rent.

If anyone could shed some wisdom on my situation I would love to hear it! I am a sponge and want learn as much as I can to make the best choice. Is it best to just get grounded for a year and save while paying rent? Should I make the leap for a multifamily unit on an FHA loan?

Thanks so much!

Jordan Coughenour