Newbie interested in becoming a real estate agent for investing..

[Chris Harjes]

Hello everyone, my name is Chris Harjes. I'm from Asheville, NC, and have been locally buying beat-up little houses, fixing them up and renting them. I've made several horrendous mistakes, but fortunately the market has been remarkably forgiving, and I'm already seeing significant cash flow, which is wonderful. Less work, more play has always been my mantra.

I'm planning to start shopping for the next round of buys in a few months, and wanted to check on getting a real estate license to access MLS and save some cash on buys. I'm looking for a self-paced, online real estate school, since that's all I'll ever have time for. Does anyone know of one that can prepare me for the NC test? I'll also need to find an agent to supervise me, but I'm happy to do that search in the marketplace. It would for now be helpful to have some idea of how much that tends to cost and how it works.

I'm also looking for other sources of deals, such as an investor with an Ugly Houses franchise or the like who would be interested in selling individual leads. I'll also start a thread for this in the marketplace once the time gets closer. For now, any general beta would be greatly helpful.

I don't have much to offer in the way of wisdom for other folks yet, but since finding good contractors has been my greatest challenge, I posted up my list of favorites in the Asheville area on the marketplace for anyone interested in saving the hassle of dealing with bad workers. 

Let me know of any tips or beta you have.  Thanks!