Living in a fixer upper?

[Shenise America Tavares]

This is my first time posting so I hope I'm putting this in an appropriate space. A little back story: My husband and I both come from long lines of generational poverty and are hoping to end that. We are currently renting a crappy 2br townhome for $802 a month. After all of our other expenses (we have young children) saving has been pretty difficult and we're living paycheck to paycheck most months. Our end goal for the future is owning a few small MF (2-4 units each) with good cash flow. We're honestly not looking for a get-rich-quick thing. We're trying to make sure we have something to pass to our children while still setting realistic goals based on our current situation. (Hoping someday we'll be in the position to aim higher!) While browsing online I saw a 2br SF bungalow for $13,000. It needs work, but honestly, it doesn't look much worse than where we're currently living, and that got me thinking. What about living in a SF while renovating? We'd be able to pay it off in 2/3 years and have extra money for savings and renovations. Once we finish renovating and have saved up enough, we can buy another home and rent the renovated one out. Originally I thought of househacking but the safety risk of angry neighbors knowing we own the place makes me uncomfortable since anything within our price range right now would be in not-so-safe neighborhoods. I feel like this would be the REI equivalent of living in a studio apartment while saving for a better place, except it would be ours to keep and rent out for extra income. What are your thoughts? I'm 100% new to the world of REI, and I realize compared to all the other threads on here my goals sound ridiculously small, but I'd rather start small than not start at all and I have to go whatever path works best for my family's finances.