Am I wrong for thinking this way? What tips could you give me?

[Matthew Parrott]

I currently own 3 properties (2 paid for, 1 not, all sfh), that I have purchased in the past. But now I want to start investing in real estate full time. My history is in cell phones, 5 years in retail (including management) and about 5 years being self employed buying and selling. In roughly two and a half years of doing that full time, I had nearly $250k is sales starting from nothing in my hand, and nothing in the bank. Basically my business included creating a reputation in the area, and getting out tons of Craigslist ads, that I Buy / Sell / Trade cell phones.

Towards the end, roughly 50-60% of my business was from repeat customers or referrals. I spent hardly any time looking for deals, and instead people were hunting me down to buy their phones. Primarily my profits came from buying phones right, when you buy them at 40% of value, a lot of things can go wrong, and you can still make money. I very rarely gave offers, instead I started by asking them how much they wanted, if that was their best price, and then offered slightly below that. I was never afraid to walk away from offers, because I wasn't interested in the phone, I was only interested in how much it cost, and how much I could sell it for. Towards the end I also bought tons of phones with specific issues for parts, repairs, or because I could solve their problems.

What I would like to do is to apply all of those same lessons and processes that I learned in buying and selling cell phones, to real estate. I knew a long time ago, that I needed to move up a '0' to the end of my purchases and sales prices, I thought the next move might be cars, but I don't know cars like I do phones, and I don't have connections in the automotive industry either. I can't make predictable purchases without some of these things. The next step up from that in my mind, was houses, we simply add another '0' (or two) to the end of the purchase and sales prices again. But I don't really have connections or a lot of experience the real estate industry either.

The problem I see at this point is two fold: 1. I don't have a job, I have been self employed for 3.5 years, with the last 6 months being a total collapse of the cell phone market and my business in this area. So, that leaves me with a cash flow problem. 2. I don't have a lot of capital to work with. If push comes to shove I can maybe come up with 10-20k, but that doesn't solve my cash flow problem. The way I see it, I need to be able to create immediate income (like a lump sum from a rehab or something) and work towards passive income to get me truly full time. I don't have any real rehab skills myself, I am an able bodied guy, and can learn, but I have no real skills at this time.

After Thanksgiving I am looking for the quickest way possible to put 5k in my hands to breath for 2 months, followed by 10k, 20k, and then focus on regular passive income and continual flips. That's where I am, am I crazy for thinking that I use all the same strategies I used in flipping cell phones, to flip houses? What tips would you give me? I am confident on the sales side, as well as marketing and eventually building up leads. Where I lack confidence is finding the deals initially so I can eat. BTW, I have 5 kids so that's kinda important, lol.