Trying to buy foreclosures

[Lawrence Gentry Thompson]

Hi everyone. I've been trying to decide how to go about real estate investing and I finally seem to have something coming together: moving into a multi-family and renting out the other units, then later buy other multi-units and cash flow from them. However, there are almost no multi-family homes in my area. Therefore, I thought about buying foreclosures. However, since I'm a novice and have almost no money, I can't buy a foreclosure since you have to have the cash (and it must be cash) the day you buy the home in an auction. What about buying properties in pre-foreclosure? Also, there are many more single-family rentals in my area so should I switch to that niche just so I can get started? I wouldn't be able to pay the mortgage if there's no tenant, though.