Advice? Rewards include good karma, cold beer, hot coffee!

[Colby Lee Bodoin]

I am new to the site and forums and relatively new to investing in real estate in general. Thankfully I am not new to the industry or investing in general because I have experience in title research and in investing in oil and gas mineral rights.

The first thing that sparked my interest was "Tax Deed Sales" because I can use my title research skills in that avenue and somehow that led to a google search and that led me to BP and a list of books to read about real estate so I bought all the books and am in the process of reading them (great books by the way).

Here is my problem there are so many options out there: Tax Sales, Foreclosures, Buy and Hold, Buy and Flip, Wholesale, Single Family, Duplex the list goes on and on and on. So where does a beginner start? Obviously research which I am doing and obviously have cash to start which I have about 20k cash right now. I could sell some of my oil and gas assets for more if needed. Also I am located in Austin, Texas but originally from South Louisiana so I could possibly target those areas because of familiarity I suppose. 

I guess what I am asking is for some of the experience investors if you were in my position knowing what you know now where would you start and what resources could you share? Whether it be advice, books, classes, groups to join, valuable websites anything that you could offer would be great!

Like I said if anyone in the Austin area could weigh in I would love to reward them with a cold beer, a cup of coffee if not hopefully a lot of good karma to those who help! I see there are lots of great discussions and posts about how to get started and I will be sure to read those too but thought it couldn't help to get some fresh community input!