Newbie Question - Maintaining the "momentum" of you capital

[Dominic Emory]

Hey everyone! I’m new to the BiggerPockets forums (and real estate in general). I’ve read a couple of the BP books, listen to the Rookie Podcast pretty much every day, and go down way too many YouTube rabbit holes on strategies I probably shouldn’t be touching yet.

My fiancée and I have a goal of building up enough rental properties to bring in about $1,500/month in the next 10 years. We’re planning on focusing on single-family and small multi-family (1–4 units) using traditional financing with 20% down. Right now, we’ve got about $250K saved up between savings, inheritance, and a little bit of crypto luck (younger me actually pulled that one off somehow).

Since I’m new to all this, I’m still figuring out the process but am eager to get started! The biggest thing I’m worried about is maintaining the  "momentum" of our money. It took a long time to save this money, and I don’t want to wait 3–5 years between purchases. We’re working on boosting our income and cutting expenses, but I also want to make sure we’re getting the most out of what we’ve got.

I've looked at BRRRR, but we are looking to buy in a fairly expensive market (Northern MA / Southern NH) and it seems tough to pull that off with $250K. Right now, I'm thinking about buying something with light-to-moderate distress and good value-add potential. The idea would be for us to move in, DIY what we can, hire out what we can't, then refi or pull a HELOC to get some money back out.

So I’d love to hear your thoughts:

What strategies have worked best for you starting out?

Do you prefer single vs. multi?

Any go-to value-adds that actually move the needle?

Big mistakes or money traps to avoid?

My main concern is making sure a property still cash flows after refinancing, so any advice there would be awesome.