Total Newbie Student from Los Angeles, CA

[Kirt Gill]

Greetings! I'm very excited to have found and joined the BP community. I'm a 28 year old medical student applying for residencies and looking to invest in my first property. I'm currently living in Los Angeles, but my residency could easily take me anywhere in the country where there is a strong academic medical center. 

Despite not knowing where my career will lead me, I wish to get started in REI now. This is because the first few years of residency have notoriously bad working hours (probably at least 60-80 hours per week), and I won't have as much time as I do now to learn and set-up systems and connections to grow my portfolio.

I'm new to the REI world but am a quick and eager learner. I have been catching up on the Bigger Pockets podcasts, browsing the forums, and reading some real estate books like Brandon Turner's No Money Down among others.

Given that Los Angeles, and California in general, is notorious for high housing costs, I'm looking for advice on the best multifamily housing markets to break into out-of-state. Based on my own novice research, I was looking at markets like Oklahoma City, Kansas City, and Memphis. 

Does anyone have recommendations for where I should be centering my search or for people I should reach out to? As of right now, I have maybe 10-15k I could use for a down payment, but I have also discussed partnerships with others who have more starting capital than I do. I'm open to any and all advice!! 

And if anyone has any experience investing as a full-time medical professional, I'd love to hear your story.