Complete noobie question

[Dallas Naish]

I'm 28 years old, male. I do not own any property, I'm currently paying rent for a room to live. I have 10k in savings, and 27K built up in an IRA.

I'm looking to get out of my current housing situation, and I'm wondering what my first steps should be, should I look to purchase a home for myself, so that i'm paying myself and not losing rent money every month? Should I look for another place to rent that will better suite my preferences while trying to save up some money for a house?

I live in Oregon, housing market is pretty inflated over here, and the area is growing seemingly pretty quickly as I'm located near Portland.

My knowledge on real estate is very limited, I'm just starting to learn about the concept of rental property investing. Any advice is appreciated.

[Nels Norquist]

@Dallas Naish Welcome to BP. I wish I would have started at 28! Portland is a tough expensive market, but there are options. First step you can take for free, is contact a mortgage broker or bank and see what you can be approved for. This will help with running numbers later and give you possible goals for savings if you aren't there yet. 

I have a friend who just bought a really nice house in vancouver. He used a VA loan to buy a 4 bedroom and is renting out 3 of the rooms, and that is pretty much covering his mortgage. You could also look into house hacking. Buy a small place to live for yourself that you think you could rent out for a year that would at least cash flow a little, and then do it all over again.

Send me a message if you want more info or suggestions for mortgage brokers that work well with investors