I have been wanting to have a rental property for some time now. The current plan is to rent out our current house when we decide to upgrade eventually. Our house is a 3br 3ba about 10 minutes north of downtown, directly attached to the nicest neighborhood in our part of town but not actually in it so no HOA to deal with, garage, metal roof, non-flood plane, and generally low maintenance with pretty good neighbors. Does this sound like a good starting point? Seems to make sense to me.

But I'm curious how everyone else got their start. Did y'all start renting your existing houses or purchase with the intent to rent?

We started renting our old house in August of last year. So far, everything is going well. The family seems nice and the property is well cared for. I'd like to start saving for another property but the rates are still crazy high. We are using a property manager but so far the only repair has been a garage door spring that likely was past due anyway.

The manager is a friend of mine (actually a pinball buddy). I decided to use him because he gave me a good rate and I wanted someone to go after my tenants if they didn't pay the rent. Thankfully, that hasn't been an issue but knowing myself it would be difficult for me to do. So definitely some peace of mind there but he has been great to work with. Listing the property and getting it rented was a breeze.