Are you a first-time home buyer? A real estate investor? Or maybe both? There is always a silver lining around every cloud, and in the nebulous of the slow-moving real estate market, one area remained positive—rental properties.

Demand for rental properties has been rising, accompanied by rising rents and declining vacancies. This fact is attracting the attention of home buyers as well. In many areas of the U.S., the median home prices in July 2011 were down 4.4 percent from the same month a year ago.

So who’s taking advantage of the bargain prices? A survey just released by Move, Inc., suggests that substantial numbers of first-time purchasers plan to eventually turn their homes into investment properties, and that many self-described real estate investors are actually buying their first homes. Traditionally the two groups are thought to be distinctly different from one another, but in today’s unique real estate marketplace they often overlap. Nearly 60 percent of respondents in the survey, conducted among a 1,000-plus sample of U.S. adults last month, said they are new to real estate investing.

Nearly a third of self-described investors in the survey said they expect to buy a primary residence as their first real estate investment. Almost half of them said they plan to live in the house until it’s sold or turned into a rental investment. Cash is king but more than three-quarters plan to combine cash and credit to build their real estate empires. What happens when they want to sell? Great expectations reign: nearly half expect a profit of 20 percent or more.

Though some investors buy and “flip” their purchases within a few months, 52.6 percent of investor respondents in the survey said they expect to live in their houses for five years or more before reselling, and 23 percent estimated it would be two to five years. Only 4 percent said they planned to flip the property within 6 months of closing.

The survey also found that investment activity in local markets is likely to be on the upswing in the coming months, presumably because of attractive home prices and near-record low mortgage rates. With apartment rents expected to rise 2.5 percent in 2011 and 3.2 percent in 2012, homes purchased for investment reasons will likely continue to attract first-time buyers.“The survey suggests some first-time buyers may be looking at investment as a strategy to become homeowners,” said Move Inc.

CEO Steve Berkowitz. “While today’s market may be tough for some, it’s also motivating millions to take an unconventional approach and creatively search for new ways of entering the housing market.”If you’re ready to start your real estate empire, reach out to your local realtor to help you turn your first home into your first investment!