New potential investor in NY area, read a lot, yet to go for it!

[Henning Menke]

I am high income (above 45% tax rate bracket), great credit score and have yet to buy a house and use it as a way to create cash flow or wealth. I read (and listen) a lot about all potential strategies such as BRRR, single vs multi family, cash flow vs flipping, transforming a single into multi-family, playing the equity component, tax benefits etc. From reading the blog and the forum, my goals are:

1. Maximize tax benefits such as rehabbing a house, mortgage interest rate deducting from my W2

2. Rent this house over my cost (property taxes + hoa + mortgage) and get a small cash flow on top of that. I’ll probably rent a smaller place than a home I could buy.

3. Maybe buy a multi-family and live on the top floor using a FHA

So my problem is actually finding a first deal that I’m confident to run with it in my region. I’ve been tinkering with this for about a year and even been pre approved with a decent rate and I have been scouring Zillow/realtor/Redfin and talking to some real state agent but I honestly never find an amazing deal that makes sense. Also I don’t have much experience with rehabbing in general so it’s very hard for me to see a property that’s solid and estimate how much I could make with small cosmetics improvements in the house or placing interesting stuff in bathrooms/kitchen or flooring/ceiling.

Anyone from the region and could give me general advice? Somebody who’s been in these shoes.