SOS - Is this analysis paralysis, fear, or just not being ready?

[Seher Taskent]

Hi everyone, 

First, if you take the time to read this, GOD BLESS because this is definitely personal. ANY advice or feedback or support is going to be EXTREMELY appreciated!

My husband and I are newlyweds and live in Queens, NY. We rent an apartment and hope to buy a home to live in sometime in the next 2 years (holding off for career/location situation), probably in NJ. I, way more than my husband, am HUNGRY to start real estate investing. I'm reading forums on BP daily, I'm constantly doing research on markets throughout the country to learn more about why a market is successful or not, I'm doing analysis deals daily to practice and understand what's a good deal and what's not, I basically live on MLS, Realtor, and Zillow. I scroll through homes and properties as if I was shopping for clothes just to get used to understanding what I'm looking at and to continuously get better at it.

AND YET, I cannot pull the trigger on anything. I have yet to even decide WHERE we would like to invest, because NY clearly isn't affordable and NJ has similar rent control laws to NY which we don't want to get started with. We're only 26 years old and our family/friends call us crazy for wanting to buy rental investments in other states. All we hear is how much of a failure it's going to be and of course, you're supposed to tune that out. However, we're fairly young and don't even own property that we live in yet. It's definitely intimidating to buy property elsewhere when all you own is 2 cars. BUT, I'm very finance savvy. I work in finance for an ivy league university and it's honestly second nature. I just have very good financial judgement. The real estate industry and how it works isn't too familiar because no matter how much research I do, I've still never gone through the motions. The numbers can make sense, and I still have this thing holding me back. I don't think I should mention how much money we have saved up but I can guarantee, it's unheard of for people our age. We have no debt, no school loans, both employed of course with a pretty good combined income. I just know how to budget money well and make it work for us, and we still definitely enjoy it and splurge at the same time. What you make is important, but how you spend can define a lot too. 

I just hate seeing our savings and how it's just sitting there.. I want it to work for us and I want to invest it. But my fear also comes from the fact that I don't want to throw TOO MUCH of it into an investment either. We're willing to give up AT MOST 20k for a down payment. Personally, I just want a small, tiny start, just to get on the playing field. I'd love to find a fixer upper for 50k (I know that's low but I've seen many people here saying they found one and did it), put 10k for the down payment and closing costs, and then rehab it for another 20k-25k. BRRRR is my go-to method that I'd love to try but again, a deal is a deal for our first one and that's our goal right now, just to start. This is going to sound crazy but I don't even care if our first deal makes us break even every month. I just want to get this first deal out of the way so that my fears and doubts are gone. I've read how some first deals even had people lose A LOT of money, but they didn't stop and tried with another property. How admirable? You either succeed or you learn, but damn I can't take my own advice.

 I don't know if it's too early for us or if my fear is just taking over. I basically do all of the research and learning and my husband is just extremely supportive of whatever I think is a good move. But I clearly am extremely intimidated, and EVEN if I wasn't, I haven't found a location I'm content with yet. 

Is investing out of state hard? How do we even get started? What was holding you back before your first deal, if there was anything holding you back? What were your biggest challenges? Is it to early for us? Did you having trouble finding tenants? How did your first deal go? What's you idea of a worst case scenario? How do you know a location is going to be cash flow positive? I'd love to hear your responses!

ANY information, feedback, and personal stories are GREATLY appreciated. Everyone stay safe and thank you for taking the time to read this!