Dallas TX Newbie Introduction and Questions

[Rubin Issac]

Hey everyone, 

I'm Rubin. I'm a grad student in Dallas, TX about a year away from becoming an "adult" with a career, 401k, insurance, the works. I'm interested in investing in real estate but I still don't know much. I'll be reading books this next year to get an idea of how I can make this work. I recently read the e-book on 7 years to 1 million and I have some questions I was hoping people could help a newbie with:

1. How exactly do you "force appreciation' after you buy the property? Is this property a little rough around the edges when you buy it so you can fix it up? How do you know what you are doing translates to X% improvement?

2. I'm reading that we should buy 20% under the value when we first buy the investment. Is that 20% under the asking price? Or 20% under the "true value" from an assessment or something?

Do sellers actually accept offers for 20% under the value? I feel like people would just get the offer they want for the "true value".

3. How do you predict expenses accurately? I have come to find out that there is a book on this. Has anyone checked it out?

4. What are the chances of you not finding a good renter and the place goes vacant for months? Is there a certain time people are interested in renting over other times? Or in your experience are people always looking to rent?

I'm in Dallas so if anyone starts a meet up I'll hope to meet some of you!