Buying Personal House & Rental Around Same Time

[Michael C.]

Looking to purchase my first home in about 3 months, but also want to purchase a rental property as well. I've worked on the road traveling the last 4 years and finally settling down.

What I'm looking at is a single family home for myself as well as a triplex home as a rental. I have saved enough money to pay 20% down for both properties and have a safety net for several months of payments (if I lost job etc)...

The triple family homes I'm looking at around about 130k - 150k and each unit rents from 850-1100 which allows for the property to fall within the 2% rule. The units could be rented as is but "should" have some cosmetic work done to be more desirable. The area is a small city area in Mass so SFH's are quite expensive to purchase as rentals.

Ive thought my best option is to pick up a triplex and live on one floor while renting the other two... wait until I can show the rental income as income and pick up another rental.... but that technique keeps me living in a triplex. I'd really like my own place and not live next door to tenants. What would people suggest? I'd like to pick up a SFH for personal use and a triplex as a rental while prices are this low! But I realize that doing so, one after another might not work once banks look at the debt to income ratio....

Waiting for a book to come in the mail that talks about this (that was recommended on this site).... Thanks