Opinions re: first-time home buying in Los Angeles

[Michelle Watt]

Hi everyone,

Posting a newbie question here, but wanted to get your opinions since I joined BP last week and I am still at the books/webinars research phase.

I'm currently in Los Angeles (Century City/Beverly Hills area) and my lease ends in February 2016. I've been renting for about 5 years since I haven't been sure about staying in LA until now, and my fiance and I would like to buy a primary residence. Problem is, as I'm sure you know, we keep reading that the market is insanely high right now, even for LA. That said, we're paying so much in rent anyway that it still almost makes sense to buy one of the cheaper condos in Century City, rehab it, and live in it for at least a couple of years before renting it out if we want.

Our goal is to live in LA and then invest in multi-families (and eventually apartment complexes) either in the outskirts or out of state, where our dollars will go a lot further. I initially wanted to find a duplex/triplex/fourplex in the city and live cheaper in one of the units (probably can't live rent free in this city), but I'm finding that even the ugliest of those are still around $2M+. If I just cared for owning just a few units, I could probably do that but again, my goal is to build scale.

Just wondering if you guys have any advice for me as to what you'd do in my situation? I've got to live near Century City/Beverly Hills/Westwood area for work, so I'm pretty limited in the area (again, for primary residence only). Should I keep renting for a bit if prices may come down? Buy a cheap condo in the city/rehab it? Are there any close areas with cheaper 2/3/4-plexes that I should look into?

Thank you SO much for your help in advance.

Michelle