One important detail is that my brother currently lives with us, and we are open to having him stay with us if we do make a purchase as a renter to help cover our mortgage.I see our main options as the following:1) Buying an SFDU to live in, and "house hack" with my brother continuing to live with us and pay rent2) House hacking with MFDU.

To be honest, I´m in the Maintenance & Construction for corporate businesses for some US companies in Mexico and we do some Real Estate down here also, but it´s way much different than the US, so I have much to learn from a lot of people around here and as @Julio Gonzalez, I think this is pretty much the right pad and place to start and to break my fears to start all over again from scratchAlso, I´ld like to hear more from @Justin Brickman why he voted for his city, pros and cons, it will help to read from a local...As I said before, thank you all guys for taking the time to write in this post and share some experienceDo you plan to owner occupy. $40k will not get you a non owner occupied San Diego property unless you find some unlikely alternate financing.

Which was surprising because when I bought it, it was on the market for over 4 months.

Also if any NJ agents that are familiar with using these and transitioning out of them can reach out for some advice and education that would be great seeing that I will need an investor Friendly agent over here to help guide me through everything.

However I also probably would have tried to troubleshoot over the phone before sending the plumber which may or may not have removed the need to send someone.

Based on what you've told us, your rate should be at prime (7.5%), unless you are over 80% LTV, then it would be prime +1.Jeff

This platform has played such a key role in my journey over the years.

Absent them, risk is controllable over time.I self manage a SFH in the Bay Area in a very pro-tenant city (some cities are a little less pro-tenant than others).

I managed my own Airbnb account for the first 3 months after handing it over to Evolve.

Over the years I have found that relying on the integrity of a tenant is often a costly error on my part.