Selling home to purchase apartment complex

[John Smith]

Hello

I am a total newbie looking to purchase my first rental property. I recently came under a lot of financial pressure due to changes in my personal life and money has become extremely tight. I currently have a mortgage on my home with about 200k left, and the home is estimated at a value of 1.2 million.

I want to sell my home and use the earnings from the sale as a down payment for an apartment complex. I was planing to live in one of the units while renting the rest out. I was looking at apartment buildings for sale on loopnet and saw that with the rent from all the units I could make 2x the monthly mortgage. This seemed very appealing to me but again, I'm a total newbie and must be missing something. I really want to change my financial situation and this seems like the best solution.

I wanted to know what I should look out for, and generally how to go about doing a project like this? Also, I don't know if there is a specific type of advisor I could speak to in person about doing this. Maybe it would be smart to go in with an investing partner who has experience but I don't know how to go about finding one. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.