Newbie in Los Angeles staring the journey to financial freedom

[Hector Bastida]

Hello BP Family! I've been listening to the BiggerPockets Podcast for several months now, taking notes, researching, reading books, trying to educate myself about the REI world. I'm extremely passionate to get my journey to financial freedom started and the one thing I keep hearing over and over.... is to take action. So here I am.

My name is Hector, I live in Los Angeles and work in advertising as a budget manager. I'm 39 y/o, no kids, no debt, live rent free with family and have a nice but not large savings account ready to invest. I don't have any prior RE experience but after the research I've done, I've decided to focus on multi-family properties and potentially house hacking my way into REI.

I'm already taking steps by getting pre-qualified and working with a real estate agent. Although from what I'm hearing, Los Angeles is super competitive on multi-family properties. My agent advised that most of the plexes are bought by seasoned investors with cash in hand so getting one to accept a loan offer will be extremely difficult. My agent advises I look for a SFR and use that as an investment property instead of going the multi-family route. Any advice on strategies to use here in Los Angeles?

Thank you for reading this and I'm looking forward to interacting, meeting and networking with this wonderful family!