New Investor, recent college grad, investment sales NYC!

[Nate S.]

Good Evening Everyone, 

I've been listening to the podcast for some time and I felt it was high time to introduce myself. My name is Nathan, I have lived in Manhattan/Brooklyn for 5 years now. I began working in commercial real estate investment sales about 4 months ago. I am lookign for buy and hold properties. ideally turnkey but I have some contacts that could assist in value add if it pencils out well. 

I'm looking to buy my first investment property within the next year (with one equity partner). Because properties in NYC are so very expensive were mainly looking in New Jersey and other markets were familiar with (upstate ny, western mass, Central CT)

It seems from this forum and everything else I've been reading is that the best way to acquire your first property is through an FHA loan where you can put down 3.5% if you occupy the property. This also seems ideal to me because being an out of state landlord for my first property, I can sense a mass of impending issues an inexperienced investor may have issues resolving.

A big question I have about FHA loans is whether they apply to a mixed use property (something with commercial in the ground floor). I read that businesses cannot occupy over 25% of the space but I am unclear whether this only applies to residential units or everything. Any clarity on this would be much appreicated,

In the future I would like to be an out of state/city landlord (as I really don't plan on staying in NYC forever) so any one with experience in this, I would be really grateful to hear what you have to say. 

Last but not least I am interested in the not so niche market of college housing. From what I have read many institutions are willing to work with landlords and properties in many of these areas are quite affordable. All that being said, having been a college kid fairly recently I know that they can be a headache. Any landlords with experience in that I would love to chat with you. 

My ultimate goal is to create streams of passive income, this is as much about the love of the game as it is money. I'm excited to have found this forum and look forward to learning from all of you. 

All the best, 

Nate