Best Approach to First Rental Property

[William Harkins]

I have spent the past couple months reading about real estate investing and can't wait to get started. However, we have been debating how we should obtain our first rental property. My wife and I planning on moving to Columbus, OH at the end of January, I was recently approved to work remote. We both are from Ohio (Cincinnati & Dayton) and are fairly familiar with Columbus, but have close friends and family who live in the city that can provide location advice. So we have been debating a couple options,

1) Buy condo/townhouse (possibly without FHA) and then buy single family residence with FHA, move into the SFR and rent the condo

2) Rent apartment, then search for a multi-family to buy and house hack

3) Buy single family home and delay buying a rental due to save up for down payment

I would love to hear any advice or opinions on the options listed above (or any others) as well as, purchasing a property on a short time frame, and using a FHA loan on the second property instead of the first. Thank you in advance!

[William Harkins]

@James Wise That option would be ideal, I am just worried about finding the right multi-family in the short amount of time we have.

@Josh C. I do agree that option will help with finding the best multi family when it comes on the market. Just really hoping to not be the renter again.