Real Estate Attorney Turned Investor

[Account Closed]

Hey all! I wanted to introduce myself. I recently left my corporate law firm (where I practiced (transactional) real estate law in CA) to pursue other interests and endeavors, one of which is investing in real estate. My fiance and I have a bit of capital to work with, but feel that we may need to look outside of CA to find good cash flow deals. My background is primarily in commercial real estate transactions, but we're interested in (eventually) acquiring a portfolio of multifamily properties. We're currently researching markets, and ingesting as much knowledge and information we can about the industry, but nothing beats primary sources.

While I'm still in the same industry, this career pivot is a bit scary and I feel like I'm at an informational deficit. For those of you with similar backgrounds, how did you get your start? Other than this wonderful sight, are there any resources you'd recommend? If you've done a lot of long distance investing, which tools did you use to lock in a market?