Newbie in Philadelphia

[Kale Good]

Hello,

I'm looking into Buy-and-Hold but am not sure if I've got the finances to do it. I'm self-employed and pretty low earner (but a pretty frugal person), so I don't have a lot of excess cash flow. However, what I do have is time; my current work is very high paying (but relatively low hours).

- I have aboue 10-20k that I could put down, but that would basically exhaust cash reserves

- A 50K mortgage would be payable out of the excess earnings from my business with a moderate margin of safety (after paying the rent for the place I live and work out of, see note below). 

- While I haven't been pre-approved yet, I've been ballparked at 125K as the max loan I could take out. 

I work out of my apartment and clients come to me (many of them walk, actually). Due to the nature of the business, I can't move too far or into a rough neighborhood or I will almost certainly loose many clients. This, of course, removes the possibility of moving in and fixing something up. 

I've been considering buying in low-income areas; I know some people hate it. However, I think there are some things that work for me (although I want to look into it some more):

- cheaper properties

- higher ROI

- higher time commitment (keep in mind that I have more time than the average Joe). 

Thanks in advance for any help.