Advice on buying my first property

[Haley Seaton]

Hey everyone!

I am a single young woman in my twenties. I am interested in owning rentals. I currently live for free with my family and want to keep up the trend of free living, so I want my home to cashflow. I am not really wanting to live alone so I figured that I have a few options. 

Option 1: Buy a renovated home with 3-5 bedrooms, live in one room, rent out the rooms so that they cover the cost of the mortgage plus some. This would require the least amount of work but may not be the best "investment."

Option 2: Buy a house that needs work, also multiple bedrooms. Fix up the house (which I have no experience doing) rent out the rooms, and live in one room. I feel like this would take a lot longer. A big plus is that I could quickly increase my net worth, I could take out a HELOC on the home to buy other investment properties.

Option 3: Buy a duplex, triplex, fourplex. Since I am a first time homebuyer, I could put a lower down payment on a multifamily and have tenants. And if I have multiple bedrooms in my own unit I would probably want to rent those out as well. (not a huge fan of living alone) 

Option 4: Buy a home with multiple bedrooms, furnish it, run it as a short term rental (Airbnb). Live in one room of the house, manage it, hire a cleaner to do the cleans.

Other info to note. I have about $50k saved that I could use towards any of these options. I would love others opinions on the best move to make, or any options I may not have considered. I have been told that the housing market will crash soon and that I should wait to buy. I really would like to buy soon though.

Thanks!!