Are you currently working on lining up funding or looking at potential properties yet? 

Those are great areas with solid potential.

Since you’re committed to staying close to family, I’d suggest focusing on properties that might need a little work but have potential for appreciation in your market.

@James Wise gonna have to disagree with the "lie cheat steal" concept regarding residents.Any resident has the potential to be less than desirable.

Specifically, I’d love to hear about best practices for managing shared spaces, screening tenants, and setting up house rules.Additionally, I plan to split the utilities among the tenants—any advice on how to handle this efficiently would be greatly appreciated!

On a recent episode of the podcast, I remember hearing one of the hosts discussing this town as a good place to invest but have not been able to find the show notes. I believe it was either Tony or Henry Washington. A...

A potential challenge with a HELOCs is they are based on the current appraised value of your home, not the improved value, so you would need to make sure you have enough accessible equity.

He has a book and good, practical advice.2. 

The market does offer lower priced investment opportunities and higher cashflow returns, with ongoing revitalization projects like the DORA boosting appreciation potential.

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.