The Right Strategy for first time older investors

[Al Seward]

If you have read my previous post, you know my wife and I are brand-new investors. We are getting ready to buy our first property, which will likely be some type of house hack.  But I am 51, and I know myself. I can't do years of house hacking, not at 51 years old (Lol, maybe in my 30s or even 40s, but not now.) I told my wife I might have a year or so in me of house hacking. 

We were trying to decide between Baltimore and DC. I am leaning more towards DC, though I hear the cash flow in Baltimore is pretty good, but the appreciation is not as good, and that appreciation in Baltimore is a little/a lot more unstable than DC.  My goal is to build equity primarily. The thinking behind this is that a home that appreciates faster will make it easier to buy more properties with equity and use that equity to continue to buy more homes and position us to build future wealth. That's not to say that we don't want a home that cashflows too. That would be great if we could find both, but my focus is more on homes that grow equity at a faster rate to prepare for the future.  

Another thought I had was that after focusing on a few houses in markets that have historically had good equity potential, we could also build a portfolio with homes that have a primary focus on cash flow and get some monthly residual income coming in as well. Ultimately, we hope that we can build a real estate portfolio that will allow us to retire in the next 10-15 years with our real estate investments, which will allow us to be financially free (I'm not sure if that's naive or not.) 

I am currently working and plan to continue to do so while we build our portfolio.  Does this strategy make sense? Are there any insights that you might give? I am especially interested in hearing from those who started investing later in life. (I hope my questions are not too hard to follow). Thanks for your response.

Al