Hi. My name is Jesse and I am a new real estate investor from the NY metro area. I am currently working as a healthcare professional(pharmacist) full time. I am 26 years old and graduated college when I was 24. I have been in the workforce for 2 years. I decided to start doing real estate 2 months ago. Long story short, I have a really close friend that i lent 15,000 dollars to. She says it will take a really long time for her to ever pay me back the money. I asked her why and what her money is mostly going to. she said that most of her income goes to rent. I had a lot of money saved up and needed somewhere to invest it so i thought that buying a property and renting it to my friend for above the market value so she can pay me back that way would be like killing 2 birds with one stone. I went on youtube to look up some REI information and stumbled upon biggerpockets and i have been binge watching all the podcasts ever since!

I am still in the process of closing this first deal. it is a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom condo in Queens, NY. I was able to snag it for 230K. my PITI is 1300. I am going to rent the smaller bedroom to my friend for 1000 per month. As for the bigger bedroom, I searched for 1 bedroom rentals in the area on craigslist and zillow and the rates are around 1300. My question is, do these rates apply if the tenant is sharing the space with my friend? or do i have to give a reduced rate because of this fact? If so, How do i search the rates for shared room space?

Also, I was wondering if anyone can tell me the best areas to flip houses in NY? I want my real estate portfolio to include experience in both. Thank you!