beginner rental property investor! my start and future advice.

[Joseph Shevy]

Hello BP,

This is only first BP post, excluding my intro post. My name is Joe and im a 23yr old accountant in the beginning my real estate investing adventure. I have been reading and learning so much in the past couple months from websites and pod-casts about investing, but I want to hear from actual people for a change!

My fiance and I are in the process of buying our first duplex with an FHA loan. Hopefully we can get this closed during March! Anyway, as everyone knows, the FHA loan is great to get your foot in the door because it allows for 3.5% down. The numbers looked real good on this property and it was in a decent location so we went for it.

Since we will be living in the top half of the building and renting the bottom half, we technically won't be "making" money, but the bottom apartment rent is $11 short of covering the total monthly payment. So, although we won't technically be "making" money, we will be saving ourselves that rent expense every month, and as far as i'm concerned.. a penny saved is a penny earned. 

So, despite not technically profiting every month, we will be saving a lot more money. Now my question is this: 

What should our next move be regarding the acquisition of a second rental property? Assuming this goes well, which is sounding very promising, I'd like to start accumulating more. Id like to hear what others have done in this situation and some advice on what i should plan on doing.

Thank you.

[Kent Verge]

If you live there for a year, and save up the money you would normally be paying into rent, you can move into another one with a homeowner loan to rinse and repeat. At that point, you'd rent out the first unit so that it's cash-flow positive. It's a good way to get started out. I wish I had considered it when I was renting years ago...