Seeking advise on first real estate investment

[Prince Zachariah]

Hello All,

I am new to Bigger Pockets and this online forum. I am an engineer by profession and very much interested in starting a real estate investment portfolio. Currently, I do not own a house due to job movement within the state of Texas and was wondering if I should even start investing in real estate on residential rentals. Is it too early to start? Should I rather use my savings for my own residential house or should I use part of my savings as downpayment and leverage the rest for buying my first rental investment property. 

Thanks for any piece of advice.