Looking for advice...

[Jon Paul Hooie]

Hello to all!  I am new to BP but, I have been following real estate investing from the sidelines for a while now.

I am to the point that I feel that I am ready to start investing with the goal of real estate as my only occupation in the future.  I am looking for advice and/or ideas on my current situation.  I have built a retirement account of roughly 70k and have approximately 15k-25k in equity in my house currently.  My retirement account is a Florida state retirement fund (so, I would have to quit my current job and possibly pay taxes and applicable penalties on the 70k and, there is a 3 month waiting period once employment is terminated).  I am looking to move out of Florida however so, this isn't to big of an issue for me.

I have looked into companies that create corporations to use retirement funds as capital in a business (avoids the taxes and penalty) but not sure how this would work with real estate investing.

Does anybody have any experience with this sort of thing?

And any advice would be appreciated as I realize that I rambled a bit in this post :).