Buy my first home or use the downpayment to invest?

[Jordan Feiner]

Hey BP, new member here. I've been wanting to get into real estate investing, but need to find a roadmap so BP has been a revelation.

My question is in the subject line - should I buy my first house or invest?

Here's my situation, I live in LA so the housing market is bonkers, a $1.6 mil teardown getting multiple offers the first day on the market is common. Its starting to cool, so that means its going from insane to just ridiculous. I've saved ups several hundred thousand for a downpayment but that's only getting me a fixer-upper. The more I listen to BP, the more I think, investing might make more sense for me.

Yes, my family could move to the Valley and get a great house for our money but that would mean a 2.5-3 hr roundtrip daily commute and I'd never see my new baby and wife. Our rental situation is pretty great, huge duplex in a terrific neighborhood, the rent is under market, to put that into context, a mortgage would double our housing costs.

Yes, I'm paying someone else's mortgage but if I'm investing and going after a higher ROI than just the appreciation in a single LA home. I love my job and get paid handsomely for it but I'd like to be independent in the next 10 years so I gotta get cracking.

Am I nuts to be thinking this?