New Investor based in San Luis Obispo County, California

[Sander A Swenson]

My name is Sander Swenson, I am largely new when it comes to investing in real estate, but my father has been a property manager in the Bay Area since I can remember. I've been around Real Estate my entire life because of this. At the moment I am working towards my real estate agent license in CA and otherwise going to college in San Luis Obispo, CA. I've been researching real estate like mad for the past year or so, having already chewed my way through some of the more popular real estate books. I found bigger pockets through the podcast, of course.

As far as real estate philosophy goes; I want a steady form of income doing something outside of 'working for the man' so that I can be comfortable no matter the job state. Largely, that equates to income for me in the short term. Long term, I want to be as recession-proof as possible and own a couple of doors outright before I turn 50.

For a first step: I am hoping to buy a small multiplex that needs some maintenance to rent out to students, and ideally, live in one unit. From what I've seen around here there are a few multiplexes that are basically just homes with walls through the living room, making one 2 bed and one 1 bed unit on the property. Basically, I want to live somewhere for 'free'.

After this, I hope to have some amount of income to direct to a Solo 401k and invest in notes. The idea of being paid to own a piece of paper that says a property is mine, then the possibility of re-acquiring that house for in the case of foreclosure just tickles me. And otherwise just invest in multiplexes in the long term afterward. The aim is to use a 1031 exchange to move up to, eventually, a 15 door property so that the day to day can be handled by an on-site manager, and I am able to allot my time wherever I deem necessary (probably more real estate).

Hopefully, that was all clear. If any of you have a moment, I have a few questions as well:

Where in the broadly pacific coast would be your opportune place to invest for cash flow?

How do you do your dd for a state or city before deciding to invest in it?

What do you do, rather than rent out properties, when renting is just not a good option for a location?

What do you do to invest when the housing market begins to fall or level out?

Thank you all for your time and dedication to this wonderful forum, I hope I will one day be able to contribute even half as much as some of you already have.