How do you decide what's best to get started?

[Abigail J Steinert]

My husband and I are excited about investing in real estate. We have been talking about it but don't know what the best plan of action is. We are in our early 20's and have a friend as a partner. We each have an initial investment of $13k each, so $26k total. We are looking in the Wichita, KS area so the houses aren't outrageous prices.

I was just wondering how you decide what plan of action is best. So far we have talked about buying low, living in it while we fix it up a year or two (paying rent to our business obviously) and then renting it out. We've talked about simply flipping houses and not renting them but selling them. I have a concern about this: if we did this, would all of the profit go to the contractor? We all have day jobs so we can't make flipping houses our main job, but can still help out. If we did do the work ourselves it would take so long not to mention we have no tools or experience.

I just want to know how to make a decision on which direction to go in this business.