Multiple Starting Real Estate Questions

[Kyle Alberry]

Hello, this is my first, of hopefully many posts to biggerpockets.com. I have been reading this for a long time without being a user, and I can definitely see there are some smart individuals here.

As my introduction, my name is Kyle A, and I am 18 years old studying to be a Finance major. I am currently in my first semester of college, and I have always been interested in real estate investing. My brother and my father always talked about buying investment properties to rent out, and I have looked further into this.

I have currently read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" by Robert T. Kiyosaki, and I have just started reading "How I Turned $1,000 into Five Million in Real Estate in my spare time" by William Nickerson.

This brings me to multiple questions about real estate, and about the book I am currently reading

1. If I were to research properties around my area, and get a feel for the market, would it be smart of me to take my nest egg and try to find an investment property around here when the market is low, so I can do a buy/hold/sell strategy? I know it would be a lot of work, because I may have to find a private lender in order to finance this, but it could jump start my real estate career with the money I have sitting in my checking account.

2. This is about the William Nickerson book I am currently reading. I have gotten to page 30, and I was a little confused on the 20 year plan Nickerson laid out in the beginning. If we were to convert this money into today's dollars, would this still be an accurate strategy to follow?

Thank you very much in advance for everyone reading and responding to this! It means a lot to me,

Kyle A