I live in Raleigh and can tell you that the 40% was not all apple. 

Real estate investing has been a passion of mine for time with my mother also having invested early on where I likely have gotten the love and desire to follow similar foot steps.I have taken last 6 months to educate myself and currently own a single family home as primary residence and would like to expand to multi family properties (2-4 units) for additional stream of income, not to mention potential tax benefits for long-term investing.Based on current living situation, I have a fair amount of equity established in my primary residency along with having enough cash to either pay off house completely or use towards investing in a multi family property.Given that I'm the sole source of income for our household with my wife being the home maker for our two kids under 2, trying to weigh out risks with getting started now or perhaps waiting. 

We do this for a living and our reputation depends on you successfully securing a loan, on time, and as promised. 

If you’re just starting or want to minimize risk, house hacking is a killer move—grab a duplex, live in one unit, rent the other, and let it pay down your mortgage while you scale up.

I wasn’t prepared to lose so much of my savings as carrying cost basically I paid for the tenants to live there for 3 months + my own living expenses in that time.

Hello Meir,I live and invest in Birmingham area, please DM to connect!

Would your parents be interested in partnering on a duplex where you live in one side with a roommate and manage the other side rental? 

Fico while they will look these are not credit score driven loans like those buying rental houses or houses to live in...

There are some exceptions, but the HOA dues normally kill your returns and there are all kinds of other issues having tenants living close together. 

After 4-5-6 years then maybe roll them up into a small mulitfamily.Another option if you have the credit and some capital is to buy a 4 unit as owner/occupied and live in one and rent the other 3.