Single residential or Mutli-family??

[Micah Carter]

Hey guys, I am looking for my first real estate deal and need some guidance!! My wife and I recently graduated from college and pursued work immediately. I am a real estate agent and she works in the medical field as a speech therapist. We just cleared our school loan debt and are working towards the ultimate goal of Financial Independence. One of our goals is to own a few multi-family apartment units. Our savings rate is high but we haven't bought a permanent residence yet.. 1. because our rent is so cheap 2. because we are weighing the options of purchasing a multi-family apartment or something similar 3. because we are a little bit scared of the process.

Should we start by purchasing ourselves a home, live in it, fix it up and put it on the rental market or go ahead and start looking for a multi-family unit to purchase with the possibility of living in one of the units & using an FHA 203k loan?

Our thought with buying ourselves a home is that we could take out a line of credit to use towards purchasing a multi-family. Has anyone had any experience with this method?

This is my first post on the bigger pockets forum so thanks so much in advance for any feedback!!