Echo other people who stated this.
First things first. Start managing your expenses since that seems to be your biggest issue right now. Scott talks through this in his book - Set for Life but Dave Ramsey has been talking about this well before Scott was even born. So figure out which one you want to follow up on and grab one of their books.
1) manage your big expenses - sell your car and get something cheaper and pay cash for it - you can get a used prius for 5-6k and you'll save money on gas too
2) house hack - i.e. do a 3.6% downpayment (FHA loan) on a duplex. Remember if you're buying a duplex it still needs to be a good deal and work out as a investment property. Scott Trench talks about this on the podcast he was on.
3) stop going to starbucks or whatever place you go to now for a $5 cup of coffee. Stop eating out, learn to cook and be frugal. I used to have a room mate that made 15 bucks an hour but went to star bucks once to twice a day and spent basically 10% of his income there. It was silly, and I see a lot of people do it. So eliminate anything you dont need out of your expenses. You're going to have to knuckle down and make sacrifices to get this done. But if it was easy, everyone would do it.
These three things will eliminate your rent payment, car payment and allow you to save $ to buy the 2nd investment property. The first duplex you buy that you'll live in - will basically eliminate your mortgage payment, insurance and taxes. Selling your car and paying cash on something used that is reliable will save you an additional 6k a year in expenses just on principal/interest.
Doing this for 12-18 months will allow you to buy your 2nd property around the end of that 12-18 months. The 2nd property can be done using the 3.6% down again, so you'll want to refi your first property into a normal 30 YR fixed or 15 YR fixed. So any $ you save, a portion of that needs to be used to paying down the note so you have 20% into the first property you bought by the end of the 12-18 months.
Follow that and you'll be in your 2nd property a year to year and a half from now. It is easy, you're just not sacrificing like you need to. You cant have your cake and eat it too.
