First time home buyers... What's the best decision?

[Lixmar Moffett]

Hello! My husband and I are ready to buy a home. We live in UT where the market is pretty competitive. We want to get into real state and we were wondering what would be the smartest move to make as first time home buyers. These are the options that we have:

- Buy a small apartment around $200,000 that's super close to universities (easy to rent in the future). We would be living there for a few years which would allow us to save a lot of money since the payments would be less than rent. The idea is to save money to buy a duplex that we can rent out completely while already having a property that we will rent out in the future, so at the end, we would have 3 properties to rent out. 

- Buy a single family home in the price range of $300,000 - $350,000. We would be paying a lot more monthly, but we would be closer to work and the area is booming because a lot of companies are moving there. Can a single-family home actually produce cash-flow in the future? Would it be worth it?

- Save more money and buy a duplex ($400,000) Duplexes that we can afford are in poor conditions and super old, but since they are close to two universities, it would be easy to rent them out, just for less. We would be living in one side for a few years, which we would be paying around the same as the small apartment. Of course, once we move out, we can rent out both sides. We are just worried that it would take a lot work to fix them up and maintain. Financially, we might not be ready for that. 

Please send your advice. We really want to make the smartest decision that can help us to build our real state business/path/career in the future.  

Thanks!