I'm a complete newbie and need some general advice

[Tom Wilson]

Hello everyone!

After doing a little research on how to get into Real Estate investing, I landed on Bigger Pockets as the place to learn.  As I'm starting down this path of learning, I've got a few questions to hopefully help me along.  Let me start by giving you a little information about myself.

What I'm currently doing

I'm currently in the "learning" phase and am reading the following books:

• The book on Rental Property Investing (Bigger Pockets book)
• The book on investing in Real Estate with No (and low) money down (Bigger pockets book)
• Long-distance Real Estate Investing (David Greene)
• The book on Managing Rental Properties (Bigger Pockets book)
• Build a rental empire (Mark Ferguson)

I just finished Grant Cardone's "The 10x rule" and about to finish up "Rich Dad, Poor Dad".  So between all of these books, I've got the motivation to go full steam very soon (just need to get through some of these real estate books to get educated).  Plus I've read the stories from the Reddit Real Estate investing subreddit and my mind has been blown.  I guess you could say I'm sold on this path for investing.

My situation

Currently, I own 2 businesses (a web development agency) and a YouTube channel that are both cash flowing really well.  What I love about these 2 businesses is the cash flow, but what I realize is that if I don't show up, they won't last very long.  Plus, I'd like to find ways to invest the extra income I'm making with these 2 businesses.  I have the typical RothIRA's for my wife and me for retirement, but I'm not satisfied with them as my primary source of retirement income.  As such, I'm looking to invest in a vehicle (which is why I landed on Real Estate) that someone else pays for (my renters), will generate positive cash flow, will build equity I can one day hand off to my children as an inheritance, and I can use for retirement (assuming I properly maintain the properties).

I currently have a home here in SoCal (a city called Murrieta).  I bought a house here in 2009 when the market was in the dumps, sold my house last year after the value had doubled and traded up into a nicer house which I bought at a below market value.  I've got about $350K of equity sitting in my new house.

Questions

While I have a general idea of how I'll probably approach Real Estate Investing (probably go after buying properties and renting them out), I guess I'm trying to map out these things:

• What to do with the equity in my current home?  As mentioned above, I've got roughly around $350K of equity sitting in my house.  I'm not sure if I should pull as much as possible from the house to invest in Real Estate properties.  I just don't know the tax implications of whether it's better to roll this money into properties or keep it where it's at.  The problem with leaving it sitting in my house is that it does nothing.  It's not working for me.  I want my money to work for me and right now it's not.
• Should I keep my current home?  As mentioned earlier, I rolled the equity gained from my first house into this new house.  We're enjoying the new house, but if I'm honest, I realize it's a huge liability and not an asset.  It's large on a big piece of property and the maintenance, insurance, upkeep, taxes, heating, cooling, etc. digs into my pockets each month.  My plan is to be in a position in 10 years to generate $10K per month of cash flow from my real estate investments.  I want to do whatever it takes to get there and if that means dumping my current home for a smaller house, I'd be glad to do so.  But before I make huge decisions like this, I figured I'd get the community's insight.  I don't know if by keeping this house and pulling equity, the banks will this property as a big liability when making the decision to approve loans when buying rental properties.
• Finding a mentor.  I've been reading "The book on rental property investing" and came across the section last night about mentors.  I'm looking to find someone local that I can learn from and I'm willing to invest in them as well and hopefully form a relationship that's a win/win.  Guess what I'm asking is how to go about finding mentors in my local area.  Any tips you found useful would be welcome.

I'm sure these questions have been asked before, but for now, the biggest item I'm trying to work through is figuring out what to do with my equity.  The market is up and rates are low, so if I'm going to do a refi, I think now would be a good time.

Thanks!