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If we could start again.. we would have bought a 3-4 family to live in and house hack.
It makes the most sense to use your first time home purchase and all the extra perks you get- to buy the biggest cash flowing home you can. Purchasing a 3-4 family home would allow you to live there for free or with very little money out of pocket.
Next thing- never ever take no for an answer. We thought after we bought our first duplex that we would just buy a bigger one to move into once we were pregnant with #2. We needed a bit more space but we wanted to continue building our rentals.
We spoke with one lender and he told us at the time we could not buy another duplex but we could buy a single family home. We tried figuring out what other options we had to buy another duplex with little money down and we were just told we couldn't at the time. We eventually decided to just purchase a single family home. We moved out of our duplex and in with my parents so we could rent our duplex out before winter time, save some money and start collecting more rent.
In retrospect we should have talked to other lenders to find out if we had more options. If the rental we moved out of was re-rented the income would count towards our income and Brandon had a great job so we shouldn't have had any issues with cash flow while looking to purchase another property. We still don't really understand why we couldn't do it, but now we know we do have other options looking back. But this was also in 2008 when the housing market wasn't as great and mortgage lenders were changing all 'the rules' due to the housing market issues at the time.
We should have read more books, networked more and joined local REIA's sooner. Knowledge is power, especially in this business. We found the local WISCO Reia while we were flipping our first house in 2017/2018. We wished we would have found that sooner, but we leaned SO much every single meeting. It's never too late to get started. Talking with other investors and learning from them is the best thing you will ever do for yourself. We were so inspired after every meeting and more determined then ever to really jump in.
We were always scared to take the risk, doubted our selves, and we never wanted to fail. We were way too worried about all the little details which caused us to miss some great deals along the way. Every great thing takes time, but some times you can take too much time and miss out. I think it's better to just jump in and make a plan. Figure out the numbers and make all the offers you can, eventually one will stick. There are many ways to invest, you just need to find the best option for yourself and study that as much as you can.
This is our first flip----- My dresser vanity. Never take no for an answer, even if its your hubby trying to talk you out of your crazy ideas... :)
