Looking for general Massachusetts real estate advice

[Siddharth Banerjee]

Hello everyone, I am a newbie investor and am currently obtaining my real estate license in Massachusetts to become a licensed real estate salesperson. I am currently in the New Bedford area and for my first property am looking for either a triplex or duplex in order to househack to live basically for free. I have around 20k saved up and am making $15 an hour part-time while attending college. I obtained a pre approval for a triplex for 250k but most listings these days are 350k+, and am currently waiting to hear back on a pre approval for a duplex. Based on all this information, I was wondering any general advice that you all might have for me in order to househack as soon as possible and get my first deal and kick off my real estate journey, as well as local tips for investing in real estate in Massachusetts that I might not know about.

Thank you all for reading my post and for all the advice, I really do appreciate it and would also love to communicate more with you.