First Investment: SFH in Good Area or Duplex in Bad Area. HELP!!!

[Branden Sewell]

Okay so I am pre approved to buy a SFH up to $207K and up to $275K on a multi family (1-4 Units).

Strategies I am considering:

1) Buy a SFH in a good area at a good price. Live in it for 2-3 years while fixing it up a little and saving some money. Buy something else and start renting the SFH.

2) Buy a duplex in a bad area at a good price. Live in it and house hack it. Save money and get my next deal. Challenge here is that a duplex in my area at a price that would cash flow is going to be in a really bad area, or it is going to need a ton of work and I don't have a lot of cash. Really limited supply. I would probably be taking all that money and fixing it up. Plus being that we are doing a FHA Loan it makes it hard to be competitive on these duplexes when investors with Cash buy them up so fast.

I'm really stuck and not sure what to do. Do I buy the single family home, or keep fighting to find a duplex?

One thing I do know is that I don't want to keep paying someone else mortgage. Our lease is up in December and I really don't want to renew our lease, and month to month is way too much money.

HELP! What would you do?