Starting Over ...Advice welcome!

[Barry Weinberg]

Hello,   

Just found BiggerPockets.com and am writing my first message.

In 1995, we bought our first townhouse for about $58,000 in South Florida (Broward Country) with gift money from our wedding.  We lived there about 7 years and then sold for twice what we bought it for for cash in 2002.   We paid off our mortgage and put it down on a bigger house ($278,000).   To make a very long story short, we had to give up the house in 2010 (you know why) and we did a deed in lieu of foreclosure and the bank gave us $3000 and we gave them the deed.

We have been renting a house since while we got back on our feet. We feel we are ready to purchase again. We are currently getting a pre-approval for an FHA loan and are looking to buy a rental property (also in Broward County) in which we are the"first renters"....and in about 5 years buy a second house and rent the first one and begin our real estate investing journey.

We are now in our 40's now, have a nine year old son and just starting our financial life over again. 

Any advice, suggestions, etc is welcome.

Thank you.