New Real Estate Investor Looking to House Hack

[Brandon Moffitt]

Hello All!

First time posting, and am very excited about being a part of this community.

As the title suggests, I am new to REI. I started reading about it around 4 months ago and I am in love with the idea of building wealth through it. I'm either going to be successful or go broke trying, haha. I am a 30 y/o software engineer, and am extremely flexible with where I am willing to live for the next 5 years or so (currently in the north east, no family).

My goals with REI for the next 5 years is cashflow. I live very minimally so it wont take much cashflow to get me to the point where I can quit my job and pursue REI full time (another goal).

I tried to start a software company and took a beating, so I don't have a lot of liquid capital at the moment. I was looking at either house hacking or finding a PML and going the BRRRR route, but it seems like HH is much more beginner friendly.

I'm finding there to be a bit of information overload and would love to get feedback from the community.

My plan is to use the FHA loan and I am targeting either SFH (3bd, 2bath) or multi family units in the range of 200k-250k. I am mainly looking through Zillow, Realtor, OpenDoor, etc... Currently looking in the Tampa, Orlando, Raleigh, Charlotte, Boise, and SLC areas.

I will give an example because I think this is a useful approach: Raleigh Property

According to Realtor.com (can these websites be trusted in calculating the info below?):

• Specs: 3 bed, 2 bath, 1170 sq. ft.
• House Price: $185,000
• Down Payment: $10,000 (~5.5%)
• Estimated Monthly Payment: $984 / month
• Zillow Rent Estimator: $1,325 / month | ~450 per person

So I could seemingly try and do $500 a month for the other two tenants and get a really small amount of cash flow...This is where I have more questions for the community:

• Should I not concern my self with having a lot of cashflow with this first property, given that I don't have a lot of capital that I can put into the deal?
  
• Do I need to be thinking about who my tenant might be? Ex. Who is interested in moving into a single bed room in a 3 bed room, and do they want to live in Knightdale?...or should I not worry about this.
• Ive read time and time again, to get really good cash flow you need to find off market deals. Is this true in practice?

ANY help or insight you all can provide would be greatly appreciated! I would also love to network with anyone in these areas!

PS - if this isn't in the right place at all, please let me know. This forum is massive!