For a newbie starting out, what you recommend first? Wholesaling or House Hacking, and why?

Personally we started by house hacking, But really you could do both- house hack while you wholesale properties. it really depends on your goal. 

The most popular option for starting out seems to be house hacking for its flexibility on paying mortgage. Typically, when you house hack, the person you are renting to ends up paying for most, if not all of your mortgage payment. @Chalyn Huff

@Marlen Weber thanks for the input!

@Julio Garcia very true. Thanks!

@Chalyn Huff house hacking is investing with training wheels. It’s an easy barrier to entry and very low risk. Ideally, it lowers your cost of living which in turn increases your savings rate so you can gain momentum to invest more. My $.02

I agree with the other posts, you can do both at the same time. It's nice to have a home base to park your stuff and gives flexibility. For example when i move out of my house hack, I plan to keep some items in a portion of the basement instead of paying for a storage unit!

My pleasure @Chalyn Huff

@Andrew Powers thanks, good thinking! How do you feel about breaking a lease? Would you just finish it out? I wish I had learned all about investing a few months ago!

@Chalyn Huff It depends on your goals. 

If I lived in Jacksonville, I would house hack. But I live in San Diego and only make $36k annually, so house hacking in SD (waiting for the *expected* market crash) is going to be challenging.

So my current goal, if the SD market permits, i'll use an FHA loan to house hack.

If not, i'm looking to Long Distance Invest in a less expensive market place.

For you, you could do both. If you don't mind having another job wholesaling. But in your market you can absolutely house hack.