House Hacker just starting out

[Aaron Gould]

My wife and I close on our first property in less than three weeks - a duplex in need of a little love. The BiggerPockets community, and the concept of house-hacking, along with the broader notion of financial freedom seems to have just fallen into our lap overnight. You see, we didn't put an offer down with the idea of someday owning multiple properties, or managing a variety of tenants. We simply knew it was time to take control of our finances and break out of apartment living. In our community we have seen a substantial increase in population - supply and demand dictate that our rent just keep going up (and up...and up..) When we moved into our apartment 2 years ago, our rent was 840 a month. Then 930. It will be 1025 in August if we were not buying our first house. We saw that the time to pull the trigger is now. Our problem? The recent resurgence in property values force single family homes to stretch our budget higher than we are comfortable with. My solution? The duplex. We managed to get our soon to be property for under market value and below list price, and it was only then that it REALLY occurred to me the potential this strategy could hold. I immediately got online and was hit in the face with hundreds of stories just like ours. We are not some special case, seeing an opportunity no one else has - and while some might have been let down by that notion, it only made me more excited about all the concepts I could tap into. I bought Brandon Turner's audio book "The Book on Rental Property Investing" that day, and plowed through it every chance I got. Two weeks and multiple books and blogs later, and I'm beginning to build a plan for my future. One I never thought (but now am CERTAIN) i can achieve. I can't express enough how excited I am to be a part of this community - to learn from everyone's successes and mistakes, and to contribute my own experiences as well. 

Please feel free to contact me for any reason - i'm a big believer in open communication and constructive conversation. 

Any left-field tips for a beginner you're dying to share? lol :]