New member - looking for advice

[Matthew Medhat]

Hello everyone, I have been listening to BiggerPockets podcasts for about 1 month now and decided to connect in the forums. I am 32 and currently in Arlington Height, IL (Chicago suburbs). A few years ago my wife and I bought our first home with my VA home loan (USMC vet), at $310K. We are now about $270K in Principal, and believe the house could be sold for $350-$360K. I have a full time job with a salary of $113K and a 20% bonus (before tax). The issue is the time it takes me away from my family. I want to begin the journey of financial freedom and I am done with corporate life. With the market potentially being at a high point, my thought is to sell the home this summer. Initially we were going to move 30 min. south closer to family and find a slightly larger/newer home (1 kid so far and planning on another). After listening to the show, this could be our chance to do one of two things in order to secure our first investment property....1. Find a duplex and house hack for a year, then move into our home. 2. Find a smaller/cheaper single family home that is a good investment property, live in it for a year, then move into our "forever home" and rent out that SFH. I am not sure if I can tap into the VA loan twice. I also don't want to spend all of the equity in our current home on an investment property and not be able to afford the down payment on our "forever home" in the future. Any thoughts? I know this isn't specific, but I have been spinning on what to do.

[Greg Dickerson]

Matthew,

It sounds like your ultimate goal is to build passive income and become a full time investor correct? If so you do not need to tie your personal residence into that plan. You can but it not necessary. House hacking is great as you can offset or even eliminate your mortgage payment through rental income on the adjacent unit but you can also do that by owning other property. There are lots of creative no money out your pocket strategies to buy rental property to get started, including multifamily which I recommend over single family. Keep reading and educating yourself on creative financing for cashflow and wholesaling to generate cash to invest.