Dipping my toes in the waters of Cincinnati? Atlanta? STL?

[Pearly Tan]

Hello everyone!

Absolute newbie here! It feels a little intimidating coming out of lurking status to introduce myself, but I guess we've gotta start somewhere right? I've always been a BiggerPockets fan and have always wanted to get my feet wet in the real estate world. My husband and I had previously own a condo, lived there for 10 years, decided we needed more space for our kids, so we bought a bigger house and rented out the condo. However, the rental did not meet the 2% rule and we were at negative cashflow every month (high HOA & state taxes in Northern NJ ugh), after 3 years we ended up selling it and barely broke even. Well that stung a little...

A year later, here I am again learning and trying to figure out the in's and out's of real estate, and hopefully be able to buy our next investment property either in Cincinnati or Atlanta (or others!). I also hope to get out of my comfort zone and network with some of you folks here as I go along my journey. We're looking to start small, possibly between a 50k-100k property to buy & hold. Any pointers/advice you can give this newbie here would be extremely appreciative. Even if it's just a quick HI :)