If you had asked me a few years ago if I would own rental properties, or if I would have been through dozens of real estate transactions, I would have said you were crazy.
I figured I could find a 3 or 4 bedroom house to buy, rent out the extra rooms to my friends, and end up paying about the same amount as I was paying for rent while building equity in a home.
My house hacking really set the stage for getting started in real estate investing because it allowed me to live cheaply and save my income, which eventually became my first real estate investment.