Looking for advice

[Ryan Burke]

Hello everybody. Looking for general guidance and advice from experienced individuals. I don't want to sound like I am flexing because I am not at all. I realize I am not rich by any means but I want to describe my situation so an experienced REI can give me advice suited to my specific situation. I am 29 years old have $500,000 in index funds through my own contributions. I own my own home I paid 16k cash for in 2020. The seller was filing bankruptcy and I was at the right place at the right time. Would have made a very profitable flip and didn't even know it at the time. I have put roughly 15k into it since then and I have not had it appraised but I am very confident it would appraise at 80-100k based on the comps. I have a 2018 Jaguar F Type R bought and paid for and I have no debt. I want to get into real estate and have been trying to learn as much as I can. I am self employed and run a trucking company so I write off my income to pay as little tax as possible. My income after tax write offs is significantly lower than it would show if I worked a w2 job. This can make it hard to get a traditional mortgage loan. For this reason I do not think I would be able to get into rentals at this point. I would likely need to use hard loans to fund flips. I have a 710 credit score so that is no issue at all but it is just the proof of income not being a w2 employee that can get tricky. So any advice from seasoned REI that are successful would be greatly appreciated. I was wondering how you find good deals on properties besides the mls. What are other good mls services besides zillow? My other question was how do you meet other REI and realtors that work with investors? I realize networking is a huge factor of success in real estate investing. Thank you for taking the time to read this far if you have.