A bunch of questions about getting my first door

[Daniel Lopez]

Hello everyone. This is my first post and have a lot of questions. About me? I am a single father living in Denver, CO. I want to start investing in rental properties. I have been listening to the Bigger Pockets Podcast for about 5 months and love it! I have been reading anything I can find on real estate investing and I think I have my plan. I am hoping to get more eyes on it in the hopes that I may get some good advice!

I currently live in a one bedroom condo with my 11 year old son. I have roughly $50k in equity in my condo. I plan on selling to get the equity. I will then rent and use the cash to start to BRRRR. I am looking into markets where I can buy a property, probably around $20-25k and put and additional $20-25k into it and rent it out. The hope is to get at least 75% ARV so I can refinance and do it again, all while creating a little cash flow from renting it out (obviously after paying for a PM, taxes, insurance, capex, etc first). I would then BRRRR again, and again, and again, assuming all goes as planned.

I do want to mention that I do not believe I can qualify for a mortgage at the moment which is a challenge right now. I believe buying something cash will allow me to start earning some rental income while I work to repair my credit at which point I can take out a mortgage and start to BRRRR.

Also, yes, I have ordered David Greene's long distance real estate investing book. It is in the mailbox at home, but I wanted to get the conversation going here first. 

Here are some of the questions I have:

- Are there markets that should be avoided? One major difficulty I have is that I the market in Colorado is insane and I think with the limited cash I have I am best off investing somewhere with a not so insane market. I have been looking at Kansas City, Indianapolis, and Milwaukee, but to be honest, I have not done much research other than checking available houses on Zillow and Redfin. Does anyone have any feedback or suggestions on markets where my plan would work and reasons why? As much as I want to jump right in I also want to select the right market first if possible. I will be building a team in a far off city. If I am going to BRRRR long distance, I hope to only have to create this team once (at least for the foreseeable future). Any suggestions on a market to start looking into would be appreciated!

- The long distance rehab kinda scares me. My family here in Denver flips, builds, and rents houses. While I have fantastic resources here at home I do not have those resources anywhere else. How to you deal with a long distance rehab? I worry that without being able to keep close tabs on my contractors I will run into problems. You hear nightmare contractor stories when they live down the street... Halfway across the country? This worries me. My initial thoughts are to keep is small and simple but I think the appreciation would also be minimal if I do it this way. Can anyone offer any advice here? 

- Is the ARV I am looking for obtainable with $50k cash to put into the deal? As in, does finding a home that I purchase and rehab with $50k cash that then appreciates enough for me to refinance and get my money back out exist? I know this is a large and vague question, but there are so many moving pieces right now, and so many deals to analyze. I have never calculated an ARV before, I am trying to find the sweet spot, the best way to split purchase cost and rehab cost to get the most from each dollar. Any advice here?

I appreciate you taking the time to read this. I am a newbie (I have yet to do a deal), but I am motivated. I am hoping to make a move sometime this summer, likely the first one being selling my condo and moving into a rental. Once that is done, I want to start BRRRRing. 

Thanks!