A balanced approach might be best: consider contributing to your Roth IRA to ensure you're benefiting from its tax advantages, while also starting small with real estate investments that require minimal capital, such as house hacking or partnering with other investors.

These areas not only offer reasonable purchase prices for many investors, but also feature turnkey homes—either newly built or fully renovated—ready for tenants, with systems that still have around ten years of life left.

So to make STR work out of state for me that would require a property manager.

Just like anything, if the numbers work, the numbers work.

We also sell some of the duplex as 1/2...so sometimes it is listed as duplex, the pictures make it look like duplex, but really it is 1/2.Another strategy might be to buy 1 with 5% down, live in it a year, then move to the next one as a primary and use 5% down and repeat as long as you can...and of course if the numbers work. 

Get your personal financial life in order if need be.  

How to find info I need (remaining mortgage balance, mortgage payments) to go in with eyes-wide-open and present an excellent solution to the Seller's problem.b.

The place needed mostly cosmetic work and I was able to get it at a good price.

It takes a lot of failure to be successful in almost anything in life.

The lender is going to foreclose, then take the deficiency judgment on the balance left from the sale of each of these properties and post judgment against the other properties.