Newbie from Southern California

[Derrick Dill]

I'm Derrick and I'm new to BP and Real Estate investing.. Little about myself: I graduated 2 years ago as an Registered Nurse and have been working full time since. I'm looking to take the leap and get my own place.. I've been doing a lot of research here on BP and listening to the pod casts to try and do it the right way. I want to be a buy and hold investor, find a place with cash flow, and house hack for my first property. My ideal place would be a duplex/triplex in LA county (near work) or North OC (near family), in a decent area. If I could get it seller financed that would be a huge plus too. The property wouldn't be an JUST an investment property, but somewhere where I would want to live for the short term at least.

With an 80k annual income (38k in student loans), 720+ credit score, 10k down payment, first house.

is the place/situation I'm wanting a pipe dream? Are there things in my ideal place list that I will most likely have to concede? (ex. probably can't get in a nice area, or with seller financing). I've been reading my area might not be the greatest for Duplex investments, is there merit to this? Should I reconsider?

Thanks ahead of time, looking forward to learning more

[Sandy Salazar]

welcome to BP! And congrats on wanting to be a real estate investor.  I'm from Southern California too by the 10 and 605 😄.  If you want to do 10k you can do an that loan that will only require 3.5% but that will only qualify you for $285,500 (3.5% is $9,992.50 down payment) presuming that is the bank will loan you that amount based on income, credit, and debt.  The hard part is finding a duplex (house hacking look up it up on BP) where you can live in one and rent the other for less than $285,500 in seal beach area.  It's not a pipe dream, just a matter of doing due diligence and working hard.  I would recommend going first to your bank or mortgage broker with your income taxes and paystubs to see how much you can pre-qualify for that loan, then find a local real estate club and meet other wholesalers/flippers that may have properties in your price range, or may already have contracts with seller financing that they can assign to you.  You may have to spread out a little farther and be in areas that are not as affluent. Good luck and let's keep in touch!

Best wishes,

Sandy