Starting out in SoCal: Riverside

[Evan Snyder]

Hey all, first time on the forums here and am trying to soak in everything I can.

So, I live in a city that's really expensive to buy single family residences or multi family. I want to get into my first deal, and was recommended to go the FHA route and wanted to house hack, but I can't find anything out here. Getting a duplex would be amazing, but I can't find anything that isn't in a bad area or just totally run down. Every place I've looked at doesn't nearly meet the 1% rule or give me any sort of break even on cash flow (even if I was just going to rent out!). The lowest prices for something decent come up around $350k, and there is no way in hell I could charge ~$3.5k for rent each month.

I've analyzed like 20 deals that are all negative cash flow and negative ROI. Super frustrating and makes me want to go back to watching dancing with the stars.

Any ideas for me? Should I just look in neighboring cities? Thanks so much for your time.

Evan