EXTREMELY Unique Position- What would you do if you were me?

[Robert Bird]

Hey Everyone! First time poster here, and I’m in a very unique position as a first potential first time investor.

I’m a 26 year old man who is a US citizen living abroad in Melbourne, Australia. Recently, I just appeared on a game show and won the grand prize of $136,000 USD. After paying off the entirety of my credit card and buying a used car, I plan on using the rest to invest in real estate (will be roughly $115-118k). I plan on investing in residential property around my hometown in Kentucky, as that’s where I have connections to people who can help. (I know several real estate agents and renovators/tradespeople, as it seems like 1 in 10 people from where I’m from are one of these things). 

I currently have average credit, but once I’m able to fully pay off my credit card debt, I imagine it will be pretty decent- pragmatically I’d say in the high 600-low 700 range. I work a job I hate at the moment, but am about to transition into warehousing once I have the appropriate licenses as it’s not as time consuming as my current job and will allow me to earn a similar wage to what I make now. I guess what I’m saying is even though I will still have income, I’m not gonna be able to do myself a lot of favors when it comes to loans at the moment since I don’t have a really high paying job. But just like everyone else on this website, I dream of real estate investing to be my primary source of income one day. 

My initial plan is to try to flip a couple of very small houses upcoming rural areas in Kentucky that I will finance outright with my own money, then use the income to serve as my reserves for rental property investments. Then I’ll start buying rental property as I’m able to in the central Kentucky area. I’ve read The Book On Rental Property Investment so I am familiar with the idea of leveraging my properties, which I plan to utilise. 

The reason I’m posting on here is because I’m having a lot of trouble finding specific advice related to investing in my target area (or just America in general) seeing as I live overseas in one of the richest places in the world. I just wanted to know; if you were someone who was in my position, how would you play this roughly?

Thanks for reading guys, any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. 🙏