First Timer - Should I stay or should I go?

[Michael Garrett]

Budding investor here and would like some feedback on my situation. I have been learning and listening and reading for the past three months. Might not be quite ready to take the plunge and still more to learn but wanted some help talking it out. I feel I am setting myself up for success and have been running some numbers on deals and have my face in the forums or on Zillow and Realtor.com every day. I have yet to going a local meetup but it is on my list. My biggest question today is whether now is the time or should I wait.

A little about my current situation; I am 37, married, two kids at two and a half and nine months. They are obviously my world at the moment when I'm not asking the internet for advice. House hacking is unfortunately out of the question but I have been telling everyone younger than me with cash and currently renting they need to do this. We just recently bought our dream home and are a little house broke, not house poor, but it takes about 40% of our income for the mortgage. I know, I know. We are currently if a rough spot with our CC with about 18K in debt and no savings other than a 401K which is substantial. There is roughly 100K equity in the house but we just bought and already refinanced to get a great low rate so I am already at 78% leveraged and not sure how much more I would be able to get via a HELOC. Onto the actual question:

Given my current situation should I pay off all CC prior to trying to invest? More info is that I have my escrow check coming (7K) and a nice fat bonus from work coming at around 14K! (lucky me, I know). I only wish I didn’t have this dilemma. My thoughts are to pay down half the debt and start snowballing the final credit card to pay off by end of next year and use last half of bonus to start my real estate journey. Any tips or thoughts would be much appreciated.

One thing I have realized from all the podcasts is that everyone says the money is the easy part once you get the analysis and finding deals part down. I tend to agree and also think the money will come once I find out how to find and present deals. Second part of this question: What are your thoughts on using family as a hard money lender? Father in law in this case.  Thanks for reading and hope to hear all your advice!

Budding in FL, MG