Quote from @Kirsten Kracke:
Hi all! I am new to real estate investing but have been researching, reading, and listening to everything real estate related for the past few months. I am dying to purchase my first investment property but I am not sure what my first step should be. My partner and I purchased our first house together June of 2021. It is a townhome in Eden Prairie and we have been completely renovating everything ourselves the past year. For background, he is in construction and is very handy, while I am in Data Analytics and love numbers. Months after buying our first house was when I got very interested in real estate investing. So after researching, I have realized that the best place to start may be house hacking. My thought right now is to buy a duplex and move into the duplex to house hack it, while also renting out our current townhome. I think the number 1 thing holding us back right now is how to finance. We have a fair amount saved up but not enough to put 20% down for a $250,000+ property and we do not want to sell our current home. We are obviously saving up but I would love to hear any thoughts about what you would do in this situation or would love to network with anyone around the Minneapolis/St. Paul area to get advice and learn more.
You can always apply for a HELOC on the house to get the remainder of the down payment you need. I would say if you guys are able to fix things up get a multi with some value add. Move into it and fix it up over 2 years. After that you can keep it or sell it with the benefit of not having to claim capital gains tax on anything under 500k profit if you have lived in the property 2 of the last 5 years.
