Then you could house hack to make extra money for your next down payment. 

I'm relocating to a new state next month and recently converted my house hack to a whole home midterm rental.

@Fiona Layne-Germinhouse hacking

Regarding house hacking, great strategy when young and can take on roommates. 

I'll repeat the obvious too----Take a video, there are lots of apps and hacks and tutorials on how this can be done.

A BRRRR strategy or house hacking with a duplex can maximize your returns.Consider leveraging financing to acquire multiple properties, which spreads risk and scales your portfolio faster.

If it is in San Diego, it will likely be a sophisticated value add and not passive.So if you house hack a local property at high LTV, recognize it will cost you significantly more than renting a similar unit.  

I am planning to begin investing in multifamily rental properties in 2025, so I'm considering if I should take out an equity line of credit to finance my first investment (my current plan), or sell my home given the $500k value increase and do a house hacking  multifamily residence to jump start building wealth through real estate investment.

Ideally, I would love to buy a multi-family property and rent it out, I would consider house hacking but I mainly want to my first property to be one that I can improve on and have it generate income for me.

It's why everyone is looking to hack everything (do it quicker) instead of focusing on the principal of compound interest in everything they do.My dad taught me a great lesson once when I was driving.