Looking to take the leap of buying my first property

[Raphael Oliel]

Hi, really excited to have found bigger pockets and begin connecting with others who have been making a living off of real estate or used it as a supplemental source of income. 

My goal is to eventually not have to work a W2 job and have enough of a portfolio to live off of the passive income. I'm currently reading BRRR and looking to get started by either doing this or get my feet wet doing house hacking.

A little bit about me and my current situation:

Age: 31

Annual income: $124k (before taxes), been at my job for 1 year (fully remote 9-6 job)

Personal Savings: $40k (able to put away about $6k a month)

Expenses: $2,700 a month

Living situation: 

- Living in Mom's house and between me and my sister who lives here too,  we pay all of the bills. Mom is retired, the house we live (4bed/2bath) in is fully paid off. Paid $476k in 2012 and the house is worth about $750k now. 

- My father died when I was 17 and he was the bread winner of the house and so my Mom doesn't have much saved up as she used up saving to pay property taxes, and living expenses while I was studying full time for my bachelors. My sister and I are pretty much her retirement plan but at least we live in a decent home that is fully paid off. My mom also owns a condo in Lauderhill Florida that is worth about $150k could probably rent for $1700 a month(also fully paid off, and HOA is only about $400 a month, included in monthly expenses #)

- Now that I am about to save some money I am thinking about getting into real estate investing or at least acquire a property for myself that can be revenue generating. 

- My mom looks to me to make decisions about what we do with our house and the condo we own in Florida even though both properties are in her name. I've been running a potential move to florida to her and she is open to the idea given that property taxes here in Long Island are expensive, about $13k a year.

Below are a few options I have been juggling in my head:

1. Refinance our primary home for 70% assuming a 750k valuation we would get about $525k cash out of the refinance and used that to get started in a BRRR.

2. Leave my mom and sister back home and leave the primary home alone for them to live in, and use an FHA loan to get into a multi-family (duplex or triplex) and house hack for the next few years

3. Sell our primary home in long island and my mom uses the money to 1031 exchange towards a more expensive property in south florida (close to miami or fort lauderdale) ideally a multi family where we can use rental income to pay off the loan we would need to take out to finance the difference. i.e. 750k towards a 1M property, and so 250k loan

Just unsure about the current environment and getting into a BRRR with rates so high. It would be hard to build equity if there is a recession and property values decrease.

Happy to hear your thoughts and I fully appreciate RE veteran advice!

Best,

Raphael