Selling my first rental property but what next?

[Dave Madoch]

Hello

My wife and I finally decided to sell our first and only rental property after 8 years(will put it on market in May). We will likely walk away with $160k-$170k and we want to use that to launch our real estate investing with passive income. For the past year I have been going to meetups, reading books, listening to podcasts, currently have the bigger pockets webinar on to figure out our next move and overall strategy. 

We live in Chicago and would like to buy a couple of properties while still living here. What I am thinking is we buy a 3 flat somewhere on the outskirts of Chicago and put the 25% down and we may have something left to do a FHA househack as well, but not sure of the chances of getting 2 mortgages in the short period of time that is required with the 1031 exchange.

After a recent meetup and listening to a speaker about commercial real estate now I am thinking we could possibly buy a 6 unit or more in a C class neighborhood possibly and I do like the sound of that. 

So I am putting this on the forums for advice or suggestions on what to do. Also after we use the profit on this property, what is next? I am currently reading the book on Raising private capital by Matt Faircloth and I find it very interesting, so I am thinking that would be the next step in our plan, to raise private capital for the 2nd or 3rd property. I would really love to find a mentor but I know that is not something that needs to be a bit more organic, but finding a mentor is one of my goals this year. 

Thank you for any input

[Dave Madoch]

I think I should have left out "passive income" from my post. In no way did I mean that I do not want to do any work to get the passive income. I was just using the term "Passive Income" to show that I am looking for rental income vs fix and flips. For my current job which I have been doing for 17 years, an 80-90 hour work week is not uncommon, so I am not afraid of hard work. I know there will be hard work in real estate investing.

For the 5 years of "easy management"  I was very lucky with great tenants that managed themselves. 

I will just continue to educate myself in the world of real estate investing in preparation to buy my new investment property this year. 

Thanks for the input