Northern CA - New To Real Estate Investing , Help!

[Carla Hua]

Hi everyone, 

So I am new to real estate investing, currently learning a lot on my own! I have a few questions that I would greatly appreciate if someone helped out. I live in Northern CA ( I know, its EXPENSIVE). I am just not sure if it's worth investing in such an expensive state, whereas I see other states it's half the price of the down payment I need to make for a home in CA haha. Since I am also new to this, do you think it's a good idea to do a Long distance investment for my 1st property? 

I did thought about house hacking a duplex in CA but after running the numbers, it would mostly fall under negative cashflow or if I am lucky come out even. I noticed this happened because in my analysis I was putting 3.5% down payment (FHA loan) which would increase the monthly mortgage since I am putting a little up front. I thought of putting a bigger down payment but here that's around $70k-100k and I currently don't have that money. Do you guys have any suggestions? Is the down payment a huge role with how much cash flow I can get monthly?

Thank you!