Buying my first home

[Cody Sanchez]

Hello all,

My wife and I are wanting to get out of the renting trap and buy our first house, the thing is that we want our first home to also be our first investment property. We're both young and unfamiliar with how to approach this from a practical standpoint. I've looked at buying a foreclosure, but we don't have absurd amounts of money to renovate it. We've narrowed it down to two ideas (though I'm happy to hear other suggestions from experienced members). My ideas are as follows:

1. Buy a duplex. We would live in one half and rent out the other unit (though it can be awkward living next to your tenant from what I hear).

2. Buy a fixer upper that's still habitable (unlike a foreclosure). We would then renovate as time goes on while building a hefty savings account. We would then buy another house when it's time to move and instead of selling the first house we would rent it out and use our savings for a down payment on the next house instead of capital from selling the first house.


This is what I've come up with so far and I would love to hear from all of you what your thoughts are on this. Any advice is greatly appreciated!


V/r


-Cody