Buying my first rental property at age 21

[John Leeds]

Hi, my name is John and I'm a local from Flagstaff, Arizona! It's always been my goal to be financially stable and over the last year I've gotten really serious about investing in real estate. My plan is to invest in a rental property, with a partner, within the next year. Below I have described our situation and basic plans. It would be incredibly helpful to receive any advice or insight!

I am currently 21 years old and taking time off of college and working full time as a server. As a server I am making about $40k-55K a year, $3-5k a month, and my partner (23), who has a salary of $60k/year plus bonus. The past 8 months we have been researching and working together, spending many hours, to develop a business plan and purchase a rental property.  We both have an average credit score of about 750 and no debt. Each month we save about $1-3K collectively to put towards a property. Currently the total amount of cash we have specifically to spend on a property is $24,000, with a targeted goal of $30-50K (accounting for down pay, closing cost, emergency fund, etc.) Recently we met up with a LO who pre-pre-approved us for a loan. Basically, looked at all our information to give us a ballpark number and that we would be looking at a loan approval of $500k-600k. We have narrowed down our target property to be a single-family home with 3-4 bedrooms in the $430-600k price range as well as searching for a property in Flagstaff, especially after seeing how well Airbnb's do here. I do plan to live in one of the rooms to be able to qualify for certain rates/ down payment since we are both first time home buyers. Being young and flexible we are open to whatever works best for our situation.

According to where my partner and I are at, and with the market being what it is now, I would love to hear any recommendations, opinions, advice, etc.

All help is greatly appreciated!