Profile of a soon to be Real Estate Investor... Please comment

[Mike Terry]

Hi I will withhold my name, but I wanted to start a post here with my profile to get some feedback encouragement and constructive suggestions.  I am 47 years old and work in a high stress, low job security profession.  It is extremely time consuming.  I probably work 12 to 14 hours a day 7 days a week often going a month without a day off.  I am married, my wife is 52 years old and we are both looking ahead and planing on leaving the rat race as soon as possible.  We have a 15 year old daughter.

Profile:

Bachelors degree, 22 years of work experience in post secondary education. 

His Salary : 112000, Her Salary : 42000

Savings: 80000

His IRA/401k Savings 330000, Her IRA/401K Savings 110000

Home Equity: primary residence 100,000, 2nd home 100.000

Debts HELOC - $7000, Credit Cards $4000

Experience: My career has taken me across this nation and resulted in 5 different home purchases.  we were fortunate and caught the rising tide of property values in some hot markets and traded up to a bigger and better home on several moves. We purchased a home that needed updating in Ohio and renovated the kitchen and bathrooms and ended up braking even in a slumping home market. We did most of the work ourselves including electrical, plumbing and basic carpentry painting etc.  We still had savings left from our previous home sales so we bought a home in high foreclosure area in 2010 at the bottom of the market.  This home has now doubled in value.  We plan on retiring to this house eventually.  Then came the struggle.   I took a job in a surprisingly expensive market,  We could not find a place we could afford to rent or buy.  We ended up renting for a year and struggled to qualify for a mortgage because of second home and my wife had not attained employment immediately.  So we downsized and rented a 900 square foot home that was only available for 1 year.  Going from 2200 square feet to 900 was a challenged.  When the lease was up we searched out again to find something we could afford to by...my wife found a foreclosure around the corner from our rental.  It was a mess, and was a complete rehab from roof to basement, but we could qualify for the loan in an area we wanted to be.  So on top of my crazy schedule we completely renovated this house.  That was lot of late nights.  Eight months later I would loose my job.  We finished the house, sold it made a healthy profit and moved on to a better paying job in a more affordable part of the country that we both enjoy much more.  After being in place at the new job now for 4 years I am looking ahead with the goal of retiring from the crazy lifestyle within the next 10 years. How can I do that? That's where you all come in.  We have a desire to start a real estate business that is a combination of rental properties for cash flow and a couple of fix and flips a year after I quit the 9-5.  We currently rent the 2nd home as vacation rental property and that absorbs half of the yearly cost of ownership. 

Question 1: How do we start? Investment property where we live or in the location of the second home?  Appreciation is poor where we live and hot where the second home is (home has doubled in value in 6 years).

Question 2: Financing. If we buy a couple of rentals when we start, what is the best method to finance them.  We have the 80K in savings but I would leave us no cushion

Queston 3:  Can I do this with almost no free time?

Queston 4:  What are some resources I will need to help me get started.  I have been reading a lot on the topic..some books suggested here... Think and Grow Rich, Rich Dad, Poor Dad.  

Thank for listening to my story, any thoughts would be appreciated.