First time investor seeking advice!

[Alex Negrete]

Hi friends! This is my first post. So happy to be here and excited I found this community. I would love some advice for a first timer thinking about buying a home and investing in real estate. First, let me catch you up with a little about me! I am a 29 year old entrepreneur, no wife, no kids. Liabilities: I have $7,000 worth of credit card debt and roughly $1,000/mo worth of bills. Assets: $2,400/mo for the next 4 years from the sale of my previous business. I have $4,000 in crypto and $1,000 in stocks. Liquid: I have $500 in my bank account. My current business, which I have been building for the last 3 years, is finally starting to become profitable and I just made $10,000, which is sitting in my business bank account and I’m deciding what would be the best way to take it out - all at once, or in monthly increments. I have lived in Los Angeles for the past 8 years moving from place to place as a renter, but recently moved back in with my parents in Texas to save money as I want to purchase my next place and move there by the end of the year. I have a friend who wants to buy the place with me and we both want to live there, but also treat it like an investment. We both have 700+ credit. With my income I could probably afford a $5k down payment and so could my friend, so $10k between the two of us. My friend’s parents said they could help us with $25k of the down payment so we would have $35k. So my questions are this- are the down payment and good credit enough to give us a good chance to be approved for a loan? I do have $2.4k monthly income, and if I pay out the $10k I made over a month I could show $4k monthly income. I could also potentially just pay the $10k to myself in one lump sum, but not sure what would be better, showing them I have more money in my bank account, or showing more recurring income. Especially considering I am self-employed so I may look more risky. Another thing to note is that I have a good friend who is a real estate agent and investor as well with 5 properties in LA and he is helping me out with this. He said he has a lender who can get 3.5-4% down, which seems great. Since this is my friend’s lender, does that give me a better chance of being approved? Should I look at a house or a condo? LA is expensive 2br condos are selling for minimum $400k and 2-3br houses for minimum $700k. Let me know if you have any questions or if I left anything out. My goal is to not throw $1,200-$2,000 away every month for rent in LA because I would rather save/invest it. Once again, my friend and I both plan to treat the place we buy as an investment (live there, but also air bnb it). I eventually plan to get more places down the road when my business becomes more successful and I am in a better place and am excited to learn about all this and want the best chance to get it right the first time. I know this got kind of long, but would appreciate any and all advice and feedback. Thanks guys! 😃 Alex