Quote from @Paul De Luca:
@Carl Dela Cruz
Sounds like a solid plan! Good for you for getting in the game early. Taking on a partner is smart especially in the beginning stages for splitting expenses and saving capital. Are you primarily investing with a partner because you don't have a job to qualify for the loan?
You may be hard pressed to find a duplex for around $200k that needs little to no work but it depends on where you're looking. If looking in Joliet that does seem possible.
We're mainly partnering up to save expenses and act as a kind of safeguard from making stupid decisions/mistakes (two brains are better than one)! We're both fresh out of school so funds are pretty dry at the moment, but we both do have jobs so that's not much of an issue at the moment! Looking further into the future as well, since I am staying in the area for at least 3 years because of graduate school we were planning to get a second house hack during my time here and have the FHA loan under my name instead of his since he will be the one taking out the first FHA loan so we'll basically have two house hacks within two years while he expands to a different area in Illinois!
But hopefully we will be able to find a decent duplex in the surrounding area. The short inventory issue is a bit of a concern, but as long as prices don't rise TOO much we'll be able to be very flexible with our money and raise our minimum purchase price