New Member - Get Started Individually or with a Partner

[Kevin Stiner]

My name is Kevin and I live in Rochester, NY. I'm happy to finally join the BP group and increase my chances of success by soaking up all the wonderful information and content from the group. As a newbie, I'm looking for advice on how to get started. In my opinion, I have two paths that I could take:

1. I can get started with a deal on my own, probably buying a single family or small multifamily property. The upside is learning a lot of what it takes firsthand, and the downside being the time commitment and amount of capital it will take up front to make it happen.

2. I have a friend that has done numerous deals in his lifetime and is willing to let me in on his next deal. Keep in mind, his deals typically exceed 10 units. The upside is: I will lean on his expertise and the team he already has in place (agent, contractor, property manager), take on less risk with my investment being only a fraction of the downpayment (5-10k) and minimize the pain of vacancy with 10 units compared to a single/multifamily unit. On the flip side I will not learn as much as I would on my own and will only take home a fraction of the cash flow.

Has anyone else had a similar fork in the road to their start? How did you decide which path to take and would you do anything differently if you had the chance to start over again at the same fork in the road?