Sell Personal Residence to buy Rentals or wait and save?

[Corey Layman]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post, but I have been here and there reading other forum posts and books educating myself on real estate investing. I was hoping to get your opinion on my current situation.

I live in Los Angeles, CA right near the coast. I bought my 1br 1ba (~800sq ft)  apartment in July of 2019. I put down roughly 20% on a 435k property and it is my primary residence. At the time of the purchase I was interested in real estate but was not quite hooked yet. Over the past year or so my interest has skyrocketed. 

I currently work as a tax consultant with an emphasis in real estate. I making decent money which covers all of my associated expenses however I have recently become quite unhappy with my job and more and more interested in real estate. Coming out of college, I didn't really know which career path I wanted to pursue, but as time goes on, real estate becomes more and more like the right path me. 

As of right now I have roughly 30k in liquidity in which I can put towards an investment, preferably out of state due to the high costs of entry in the CA. However, I would like to have more liquidity before I dive into a deal. Although, I could potentially try and raise cash from outside investors, I would like to do the first deal on my own since I know there is a lot to learn. I plan to implement the BRRRR strategy with a few tax tweaks of my own that I have learned on the job.

So my current dilemma is whether or not I should look into selling my personal residence, and use those proceeds to start my investing career off or stay where I am out, continue paying down the loan and gaining equity, slowly save enough to buy an investment property. I estimate that it may take me well over another year before I will have enough cash to start buy my first property. 

Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you!