College Student - Real Estate Advice

[Andrew Yang]

Throughout high school from working long hours on various jobs and then investing that money into ETFs, I managed to save up (some say I sacrificed my social life through not spending any of it) around $40k.

I’ve been thinking of buying a house as an investment and rental property on a mortgage (credit score is ~780). In terms of employment, I think that I should have no problem securing a $80k+/year job after graduation.

My parents (credit score 800+) have been generally supportive of this and would probably be willing to cosign. I’m heading off to college in an east coast college town (rural and not in my state). In terms of college tuition/student loans, I’ve been fortunate enough to receive a merit scholarship that should be able to cover most of it.

I understand that there is a massive ton of work in maintaining and managing a rental property. I've also been researching legal, insurance, liability, etc. options. I've thought of doing a LLC.

In terms of budget, I think anything under $180k is do-able. A problem is that there aren't a lot of single family homes for that price, but I guess it's not a bad start (townhome/twinhome). I think I'd go for a foreclosure auction or something like that, but I know that most of the other people have had decades of experience on me.

The housing in this college town isn't exactly cheap. A 2 bed 2 bath condo in 5 mins walking distance to the college costs $300k~. Something 20-30 (walking) mins away costs the same, but is a much larger single family. Single family houses (3-5 bed 3-4 bath) are 1-3 million. The college is the main driver behind the economy in this location and real estate value. 

I think I have two options:

• Buy a house in my home city (suburb of Minneapolis) and use a property manager.
• Buy a house in the college town (East Coast) and live there instead of living in a dorm (college dorm costs around $9-10k/year, so that'd be a major expense "saved"). AirBnB/rent it out.

Any thoughts? Advice?