50K Cash! Best Way to Invest it into Rental Properties?

[Seth Paul]

Hello everyone, I need some advice. Short background of myself is that I am only 22 years old, live in West TN, and I am the General Manager of a car dealership. I have a good and steady income with pretty good credit. I am engaged to be married in June of next year. For the past several months, I have been reading real estate books and trying to get as much education as I can. With all that being said, I am ready to invest into Real Estate. My question I have is with this 50k in cash I have, how do I invest it properly and get the biggest return on my money. The houses I have been talking to my agent about are 3/2 Rental Properties around 1000-1200 Sq Ft that are selling on average for 50k. I should be able to rent these out for $500-550 a month pretty easily. Would it be smart to try and buy those houses and put 20% down (10k) and buy 5 of those? Other option is to put nothing down and finance the whole amount which I think I should have no problem doing. Keep in mind, I am about to have to buy my first home for me and my wife around the first of next year. We are still wanting to pay around 40k down at the time we get ready to buy our own house. I want to get the most out of this cash that I have already to grow my portfolio the smartest way possible. I have also considered taking the cash and buying a house to flip and taking my gross profit and turning it into the down payment of my rentals. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this, I look forward to getting some great advice!