Start In state or out of CA?

[Leenie Fo]

Snapshot - Live in SFV/Southern California; Married with 2 young kids, live in an apartment with rent control, have student loan debt (on plan for forgiveness), car loan and some cc debt, make decent income and in process of paying down debt. Hubby and I are trying to decide what makes most sense, buy a place further out such as Palmdale to live in where it's cheaper and hopefully we can build equity and commute to San Fernando valley for work or buy a rental out of state. We feel that by renting with are just wasting money and want to start on the path of real estate investing. Our goal is in 10 years to have several units that we are renting out and are unsure wha makes more sense, moving ourselves, building equity and then having more to invest or just trying our luck out of state. Have about 5k saved and can pull about 10k from IRA. Ideally we'd love to get a duplex/guest house but they are not in safe areas out there or are out of our price range so that and house hacking also wouldn't work as we have small kids. What would you guys do??