@Brandy Luna congratulations on being able to save $30k. That's a HUGE success. That shows you have discipline and the ability to budget. Both of those are skills you will need your entire investment career.
Now, it sounds crazy to think that $30k isn't that much money. I mean, it's a LOT of money but it does make some things challenging.
So, what can you do with $30k? You can buy your own primary home. You can buy a multi-family primary home. You can househack that home or just live in it for 1 year, and then buy another primary home a little later. Not everybody can do this strategy...especially if you have kids, family, etc. but if you can, now you are buying with the help of a realtor, your home is inspected, you can negotiate with the seller on things, and you get the best rate you can find. So, there are good things about going this route.
What else can you do? You can absolutely, most certainly flip....but you have to be really accurate on your math. When you flip you need to be within 5% of your ARV. You need to be within 10% of your rehab costs....and you do both of those steps BEFORE you make your offer. The other thing you do before you make your offer is you find a hard money lender that will allow you to come out of pocket $0. None of this "we lend 100% of the purchase and 80% of the rehab" stuff. I mean, you can work with whomever you want to of course...but the way the rest of us do this is we find a lender that will allow $0 out of pocket. Usually they lend 70% of the ARV (that's the math we want). That way, if I can BUY and REHAB at 70% of the ARV...now I come out of pocket $0! Ok, so you'll have to turn on the utilities and pay the monthly payments on the loan, etc. But what I mean is to have no downpayment. Admittedly, finding a property where you can get that math to work is hard...but so is everything real estate investing related. I make about 100 offers to get 2 deals. So, you might have to stick with it for a while.
And you can certainly partner with people too. I would only do this lastly though. Well, at least not until you feel REALLY comfortable with someone. Like, you know them for a year or something. The best way to meet other investors is through local Real Estate Investing (REI) Groups. Try some local real estate meetup groups. Meetup.com is a good resource for those but some of the groups will also post here on Bigger Pockets Marketplace too. Even facebook might have some good local groups for you.
I know I'm hitting these real quick but those are the concepts at least. Hope all of that makes sense. Thanks!
