Any REI advice for a young person?

[Ade Wilson]

Looking for outside opinions on the best move I should make. I'm 26 just purchased my first home in November of last year. Bought a 5 bedroom 3 bathroom duplex less than 1 mile from new LA Rams stadium. I got a killer deal from a family member so looking to take advantage of the opportunity. My house is currently worth a little over 1 million and my mortgage balance is 327k. Im renting 1 unit out and that covers my mortgage plus gives me a extra $300 every month. I live in the other unit for free but thinking about renting it out for extra rental income. I got a killer deal haha... I'm thinking about taking a 500k HELOC to purchase rental properties but the LA market is so high right now I don't know if I should pay straight cash or finance homes in the Los Angeles area. Any experts on REI that can share some wisdom?

[Lee Ripma]

Every person has different goals, so I’ll just tell you what I would do in your situations, which is not necessarily what you should do! I would max out the income on the house you own currently. Get the units rented for the max, rent out bedrooms. Then I would get approved for a HELOC or a personal line of credit. Then I would think about what my goals were and how to achieve them. I would save up liquid cash from the rental income and my job. Then I would start small, you can participate in a syndication for 100k. You could buy small MFs in a more affordable market. You could take on more and look for killer deals in east LA, you could get into funding flips. You could buy index funds! What is your goal and how can you achieve that? It may not be with RE at all! Regardless you’ll never regret saving up liquid cash and maxing out the income from the assets you do own!