In the meantime, I would like to take advantage of the small savings my husband and I have to get ourselves into REI.

It may be disheartening to start all over, but may save you plenty of grief.

On the other hand, if an attorney can help us manage the moving parts, and we don't get snagged on the loan/appraisal situation, then we could save because in that stage we will only be paying 3.5% to the buyer's agent because it won't be listed.

Currently I'm saving up and doing some repairs on this house as I plan to stay here for 3 years at least, buy another property and hold this in the future.

Due to the age of the homes in our markets, we often have to gut everything anyway, thus we can take savings on the rehab of the smaller space to offset some of the cost of the addition.

Unfortunately I did not save any extra money to live off of.

I graduated college last year and have since saved up a little over $15,000.

(Somehow she has managed to save a full month's rent security deposit.)

Although it does give you the time to save up the required downpayment and reserves

All of my purchases were buy and hold.I'm sure being on the ground there can save you money and give you access to better deals, and if you're interested, I'm happy to refer you to the people I work with.I have an agent, lender, and property management company there, and everything I've done so far has been hands-off, except for a minimal amount of project management, and researching the deals.