Long story short - I own two houses - one that I live in and one that I rent out. My tenants' lease expires next June (June 2026) and I do not believe they will renew.

If we sell the house, we're likely going to make around $300k profit.

I'm trying to figure out how we should spend that. My first thought was to buy 5 - 6 single-family houses and rent those out, but...I'm reading through Brandon's book right now and it seems that with $300k available to spend, we could skip straight to apartment building ownership.

After doing some research, I found an apartment building that I think would work. It has 24 units.

My biggest questions are...

1. What mistakes would I be making if I went STRAIGHT from having one rental house to buying a 24-unit apartment building instead of doing the "trade up" method and starting with a few fourplexes like Brandon discusses in the book? Is there a reason I should start smaller rather than the "go big or go home" mentality?

2. Is this a good use of $300k? Spending it ALL at once as a 20% down payment? Or am I better off splitting up and diversifying?

3. Aside from cashflow differences, would I be better off spending the same amount of money, but in a more expensive region for less units? In other words - buying a $1.5M 24-unit apartment building in a cheaper region or buying a $1.5M 6-unit multi-family unit in a more expensive region?

4. Any thoughts on using this $300k to focus on long-term rentals vs. short term Air BnBs?

I'm VERY new to this, but I'm a pretty smart guy, so I don't want to do something dumb - looking forward to learning a TON more here and reading more books before next June comes around!

Thanks!!