Any advice/tips for a real estate newbie that is starting out in Bay Area, CA?

[Kenny Hoang]

Hi everyone! Newbie here to the real estate investing world, but really eager to get my feet wet.

I currently live in San Jose, but am deciding to move to a cheaper location where I can get my first property. As much as I would like to stay around my hometown, houses here are not cheap. I am thinking about moving out to Sacramento, as I see some duplex’s around 500-700k range.

I'm planning on house hacking my first property, which would be a multifamily, and build a portfolio of multi-families within the Sacramento area. Planning to buy a new property every 1-2 years and repeating the house hacking strategy until I have enough capital/experience to start the BRRR strategy.

For the investors that are in Sacramento/Bay Area, I would love to hear about your stories of how you first got into real estate investing. As you can tell, this is a very big step for me and is quite nerve racking trying to make my first purchase as smooth as possible. I would appreciate any tips/advice/books that you can provide me to help jumpstart my real estate journey!