Hi @Lillian Pintaro I am a GC and real estate investor in Birmingham.

Hello my name is Yanick, I live in California.

In southern CA, even garage conversion ADU additions are typically costing more than the value added.  

We plan to stay in this house for more than 5 years unless another great opportunity arises, but maybe it is best to allocate a bigger portion of savings to our real estate investment savings account than our home improvement savings account for the first few years.

im in Orange County CA and there is a huge market here for room by room rentals here. i've been doing this for quite some time (over a decade now), and it certainly has its pro's and cons. my advice if you go about this is make sure you do proper vetting before moving someone in... not only for financials/ credit-worthiness, but also for temperament and expectations in a co-living space. we ask a lot of questions like "how do you handle conflict?"

I bought a 3 acre plot in Sonoma county CA. late 90s unbuildable everyone told me it was not worth buying since it would not perk and you could not build on it and Utls are a long way away. etc etc.. well there was a new overchange put in about 3/4 of a mile away connecting my access road to the freeway . 

Look up Milwaukee real estate market on YouTube.  

I am in Orange County, California, and a 4-unit in Newport Beach with one unit being a 3/2 for example LTR would not bring in 7K gross income on that unit.

Awesome to see a new investor-minded person here.. do you have a favorite real estate success story already?

Unless you have a Roth SDIRA, there are significant downsides to investing in real estate with an IRA.