Help finding first house

[Colton S.]

I am 20 years old in Raleigh NC. We are trying to find a good property to buy for possibly a rental house. We are first time home buyers, and interested in everything. My only worry is that I need a place to live also. We originally wanted a duplex and live in half, but all around here seem overly inflated on price 150k or higher. Would it be a bad idea to buy two cheap or low cost properties and rent out one of them? Any suggestions are welcome too!

[Andrew S.]

Originally posted by @Colton S.:

Hey guys, thanks for the replies!
I currently have about $3000 for down payment but am able to secure more quickly. (Just have to work on controlling my spending). I was hoping to finance both these homes, my first house on a first time home buyers loan(hopefully little to nothing down). I am decent with repairs, and would be willing to learn if it would save me a good amount. I would have to assume I would get approved for two homes. I'm 20 as I said, average income of $48,000 and credit is around 740. Haven't done the application to be preamp proved until I know what I want to donfirst or have an idea.

 Welcome to the site, Colton.  I don't want to be the "wet blanket" here, but you should talk to a mortgage broker or a bank as soon as possible and get pre-approved for a loan.  You may have other income sources or access to people who can co-sign a loan etc., but based on the numbers you provided, I predict you will have a VERY hard time qualifying for a big enough mortgage for a solid property in a solid neighborhood, let alone two.  The Raleigh market is not cheap - unless you are willing to go into seriously sketchy parts of town (definitely not recommended, especially not for a newbe).

Once you have an idea as to how much you can borrow "the traditional way", you can decide to move forward or whether to explore other options (@Brandon Turner 

 wrote the book on those).