Those big blue city refugees bid war fighting each other for houses are going for that perfect picket fence suburban lifestyle, flush with the cash they got selling their big blue city townhome or condo. 

Currently shooting for around the 500k mark as that’s affordable and lands me close to downtown for my preferred lifestyle, if it’s my own condo that I buy first.What would you recommend, buy your own home first or buy a rental (an investment property?)

Your next door will probably need more of a cash savings built up but it should be within reach in about a year depending on your lifestyle.

UNLESS you're just running this as a lifestyle business and don't care about your return.

I'm more into this for spending money later but I also don't see anything wrong with taking out profits if it fits your lifestyle, it just may slow down growth which isn't where I am at at the moment.  

Within IT though I would also recommend, on a lifestyle and time basis, that once you have a certain number of years under your belt as a technician, say 4 or 5 years, I would shift gears from the technician route and use that background to get onto the project management path. 

Think in terms of dollars needed to cover your lifestyle and work fast to get there. 

The question becomes how low do you need the cost of living to drop to win, and what lifestyle do you want? 

Ideally covid-conscious coffee somewhere but zoom or just some dm's work great as well (I'd pay for the coffee :D)! 

If I have 4 million dollars, I will retire tomorrow regardless my age because I know I will never use up the money (with a middle class lifestyle).