What would you do if you only had $2,000 to spend?

[Phu Le]

Hi everyone,

Long story short I lost most of my net worth in the stock market(please save your story about how stupid I was because I already know). I took about a year off of life to move back in with my parents and figure out what I really wanted to do. Real estate has always fascinated me but like most people I just never really took the leap. Over the past few months, I devoured any information I could on real estate investing and decided that this is what I want to partake in.

I pretty much have nothing in the bank to invest right now. However, I was able to find a full-time job and will be able to net about $1,000 per month after all expenses to invest. So after 2 months I will have about $2,000 saved up. I'm wondering if there are any strategies to put this money to work? I know $2,000 isn't much but it's something.

I live in San Jose, CA so $2,000 isn't even enough to cover closing costs let alone down payments. I'm thinking to look at cheaper markets like Ohio or Georgia and do deals virtually. I can maybe buy a distressed property for $20,000 and put $2,000 down using a hard money lender, fix it up, then sell it for maybe $40k-$50k. I know I will need to cough up more money for repairs but I'm hoping I can bake into the loan.

This is the best thing I can think of besides saving up money for decades in order to afford a down payment in San Jose. If anybody has any better ideas, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks and best of luck to all your endeavors.