Buy PR or invest

[Graham Williamson]

Hello BP community,

This is my first post on the BP forum, thankyou in advance for any advise.

We have lived in the US for the past 15 years, mostly renting and previously owning one property. Currently we are renting in a city of Orange Co California, where the rent and property prices are higher, however we need to live here due to staying within the school district for my son for at least the next 4 years.

Recently we sold some property overseas and have approximately USD $400K in cash. Initially we were set on purchasing a Primary Residence again, single family or townhome within reach of my sons school and continuing life as usual, but feel like we are slightly priced out of the market we want and areas we need to live. Then I started listening to BP podcasts and other real estate investing podcasts and became interested in investing the money we have to work for us. Once my son has finished school we will have a little more flexibility to purchase a PR or MFP in other areas. The BP podcasts have broadened my ideas on what we could potentially do with our funds. 

I have many ideas and strategies that could potentially work for us and would like some advise from the BP community. We are unsure if purchasing our Primary first is the best way forward before getting into any type of investment. Ideally we would like to avoid paying someone's mortgage, but is investing while renting in our current location a wise move? The down side of purchasing our PR in this area is the mortgage payments would be quite high, preventing us from saving anything toward a future investment. I like the idea of multi family properties, this is something we could occupy one portion of, however these are uncommon in the city we live. Other options are SF homes in other more affordable areas or out of state. We need to do something that is going to enable our capital to appreciate with the market and like the ideas of investing but are unsure where to begin. 

Thanks again.