My tentative plan forward is to purchase a sfh and I will live in it for the next four years or so while I finish up school (grad. in sept '14) and I will rent the spare bedrooms to help cover the mortgage then when I move (or maybe sooner) I will buy my next property and so on.

Luckily we are both passionate about real estate and love spending every spare moment we have in solidifying our plans.Glad to be here and looking forward to the future!

So what I did was find a good home that had a good setup to rent out spare rooms.

Ultimately I'll be looking to buy and hold when I have spare funds and am ready to deal with tenants.

If in a city, picking up a spare job is more possible.

I learned this by reading books, asking questions/viewing posts here on BP, and renting out two spare rooms in my primary residence for a year to get the hang of it.Property management is so important that I don't even look for deals in a target market until I have a PM already interviewed to the core and felt comfortable working with.

I've made some improvements and also depreciate 33% (portion of home from renting out spare rooms) that are going to affect the basis/how much I get taxed down the line also.

Also if you are in the Chicago area and have a minute to spare, I am looking for a mentor or two I can bounce ideas around with.Look forward to getting to some of you!

The number one complaint from the maintenance guys is they are a hassle to work on because of their compact size.

The same is true regarding the HELOC - you could spare your parents from taking out a HELOC and use hard money.Just my two cents without knowing more about your target market.Continued success!