House Hacking (Fixer Upper vs. Move In Ready

[Preston Wallace]

Hey everyone, I am new to the BiggerPockets community. I have been listening to the podcast for the past few months as I have been exploring the idea of building a portfolio of rental properties. I am an accountant in my mid twenties in the Montgomery, Alabama area. I currently have one property that I am already house hacking but that started unintentionally as a new employee at my firm needed somewhere to leave and I had just purchased a 3 bedroom house in the area. 

Since I have begun listening to the podcast, I have developed the strategy I would like to take in building a portfolio. I hope to be able to buy a new house every 1-2 years. Move into the house and get a roommate, preferably two. and do this until I have 5 rental properties. After that I would aggressively payoff all the mortgages. Housing in my area is rather affordable so I have faith this strategy would work well. 

My question is I am not sure what type of property I want to pursue next. Top of the list would be a duplex, tri, or quad. However, those are hard to come by in my area so I'm not getting my hopes up. Next would be an ADU, but again there does not seem to be a huge market for these in the central Alabama area. So that leaves me with finding an older home that needs a face lift but I could likely start with more equity and a lower payment, or moving into a newer home for more money.

I would love to hear any advice from other members of the community that experience in these areas.

Side question. I was able to get a CRA loan on my current property. Does anyone know whether there are any stipulations that would prevent me to turning that home into a rental property? I have already lived in the home for one year. I do not want to have to refinance if I can avoid it.