Of course, we often need a "nest egg" that we can generate cashflow with.  

This is because there may be multiple heirs, other claimants or creditor claims that could eat away or eliminate equity.In my state, CA, DHCS (Medi-Cal) commonly takes big chunks and occasionally all of remaining equity.

I like how Curt has his spread out more which probably has less risk and fewer eggs in one basket, but this seems to work in some places.Thought you might like to hear about it.  

If it were me and I had just gotten out of school, I'd stop eating and whatever else it took for the next 30 days to save up the difference between now and closing. 

I am a full time investor and Realtor, so I eat breath and sleep real estate. 

I think of it like eating a restaurant.

If you sold the house, your closing costs would eat up some of your proceeds and on top of that you'd have to pay capital gains. 

Unless you have a VERY good team put together, I wouldn't attempt any flips, and purchasing rentals with only 100k cash is putting all your eggs in one basket.Just my $.02.

And just new paint would eat up a good portion of those repair dollars.

Okay, I might have gone a little crazy on eating out when I first moved to the city but I've gotten that out of my system now!