Am I Ready to Start Investing in Real Estate?

[Jonathan Cucco]

I'm 21 years old living in Brooklyn, NY.  I have roughly 20k in savings and am looking to invest it somewhere.  I understand that real estate creates reliable residual income with renting, and flipping fixer upper properties can make you good money as well.  I am not sure if i really have enough money yet to get into real estate, especially in such an expensive market like NYC.  What do you all think?  When and how much did you have saved when you started investing?