I feel a loss of direction and that makes it really hard for me to focus and build.Do we keep at building a portfolio of small multi family (very abundant in my market, very rare to find anything above a triplex for sale), with plans of selling the portfolio and 1031'ing into larger properties? 

Purchase price: $169,000 Cash invested: $35,000 Looking to put 70K into the separate garage to make a 730Sqft home.

. $220,000 is definitely a lower purchase price amount and really limits you on what you can buy.

Purchase price: $275,000 Cash invested: $294,000 Sale price: $355,000 The property is a 2 bed 2 bath with a den and a 1 car garage.

I wouldnt give any consideration to what the seller needs in order to break even in determining the purchase price.

To OP, it's not as scary as you think it is, this will be your first home purchase, you can purchase a multi family or SFR and house hack.

Too bad you can't buy something owner-occupied, put 5% down with the best interest rate, live in it for 12 months (and fix it up), rent it out and repeat the cycle.Here's some other info you might find useful:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

If you would like to generate your own leads, I would pop over to the the wholesale section of the forum and start there, and perhaps purchase some books from the BP store.

Purchase price: $155,000 Cash invested: $60,078 Sale price: $275,000 Fix & Flip property in great neighborhood in Saraland, AL.

Hi Aaron, I know I wasn't the original poster, but we did end up doing new construction down there in the past year (also purchased cabins before deciding to build).