Beginner Seeking Mentorship + Resources for Buying 6–8 Unit Multifamily in Pittsburgh

[Krishna Patel]

Hi everyone,

My name is Krishna, and I’m a new investor preparing for my first purchase in small multifamily. My long-term goal is to build a portfolio of 6–8 unit multifamily rentals and hold them for steady cash flow.

In the near future, I’m planning to invest in a Pittsburgh, PA multifamily property and ideally house hack my first deal by living in one of the units for the first year. I will be partnering with my father for financing and the initial investment.

Since I’m a complete beginner, I’m hoping the BiggerPockets community can help point me in the right direction.

What I’m Looking to Learn

I’d love recommendations for beginner-friendly resources that cover the fundamentals of small multifamily investing, as well as books, podcasts, and videos that helped others get started. I’m also looking for tools or methods for analyzing 5–10 unit deals. Any market-specific insights for Pittsburgh—neighborhoods, rent expectations, demand, operating costs, and what to look out for—would be extremely valuable.

I'm currently starting an online course on Udemy called "Fundamentals of Analyzing Real Estate Investments". Any thoughts on this course?

Seeking a Mentor or Someone Willing to Share Experience

I’m also hoping to connect with a mentor or experienced investor, maybe someone active in Pittsburgh, in small multifamily (4–10 units), long-term rentals, or house hacking. I’m serious about learning hands-on and I’m willing to provide value in return, whether that’s helping analyze deals, assisting with management or online tasks, etc. I’m just looking for a genuine, real-world working relationship or guidance from someone who’s been where I’m starting.

If you have any recommendations, insights into the Pittsburgh market, or would be open to mentorship or collaboration, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

— Krishna

[Jeremy Taggart]

@Krishna Patel BP has a bunch of good books to read that are really helpful at the beginning. Some that come to mind that were impactful for me were Set for Life, the House Hacking Strategy, Multi Family Millionaire volume 1, the book on rental property investing, the book on managing rental properties, and both of Chad Carson's books.

I house hacked my entire 20's (did 7 total) and it was hugely impactful for my overall financial position. 100% would do the same thing all over again if I was starting from scratch in my early 20s. One per year and ideally some sort of value add component involved where you can build some equity with each of them over the first few years as well. I would try and stick to 3-4 unit properties now versus duplexes unless the duplex was a killer deal.

niche.com is a good website for searching neighborhoods/townships/boroughs to get a sense of the good and bad areas on a high level. Most areas have good and bad sub sections though so hard to dive super deep on a surface level but that's a good gauge. 

Best way to learn the market IMO is just keeping tabs on all the small multis that hit the market and seeing how long it takes them to go under contract/sell and what they sell for. That's how you become an expert on the market. That along with running numbers on each one so you actually know what is a good deal or not. Also checking rental listings in the area active for rent at any given time when looking at a deal will help you learn market rents. You can do that when you are analyzing the specific deals to help with that side of things.

Pittsburgh is a great market for small multi family and house hacking. Really allows you to achieve FI a lot quicker than some more expensive cities if you combine it with living below your means and a high upside source of active income.

I'm also a fan of getting into a job that relates to real estate investing. For me that was doing property management along with getting my agent license. Great way to "learn on the job" and get an unfair advantage you wouldn't get with a non REI related job.