I started with $25k and I bought the cheapest distressed 2/1 SFH I could afford. 

I bought a condo to live using my investment criteria (long and boring story).

Purchase price: $160,000 Cash invested: $40,000 Sale price: $268,000 I bought my first house in Kalispell Montana as a long term investment and possibly a rental.

The contractors you run into inside & outside the store, will be hard workers.Good luck!

I immediately went to the project and took the contractor to the store to buy all of our supplies. 

I bought my first two rental houses with a combination of using a HELOC on my primary and using my retirement $.

I bought the house with an unfinished ADU that I hope to finish by Fall of 2024.

Instead, they bought homes and lost money, then acquired Open Door and lost money.

Quote from @Geoff McFarlane: We bought our current home in 2011 for $97k.

Unkempt lawns, trashy or broken down vehicles, mattresses and trash on empty lots, boarded up houses, bars on windows, dealers and hookers on the corners, the lack of stores or gas stations, occupied properties are dilapidated, etc.Or when Google maps shows stuff like this: