New investor looking for education and critiques

[Roderick T Byars]

Hello BP Community!

My name is Roderick Byars! I am a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force with a wife and infant son. My wife and I are both excited about starting a journey in real estate and are both ecstatic that we found Bigger Pockets to help us get started and grow. After reading the Ultimate Beginner's Guide and listening to hours of the BP podcasts, we started to develop a plan for how we would like to start and grow in this business. The plan is along the following lines:

For the next year and a half, we plan to save up capital and educate ourselves on all things real estate. After we have hit our capital goal, we want to begin buying multi-family homes that we can buy cash, rehab, and turn into rental properties. Because we are in the military and that requires lots of moving, we would like to localize our plan to a specific area, more than likely somewhere in the south.

My questions, as far as this plan is concerned are:

What are some resources I can use to learn real estate numbers and how to analyze deals?

What are some ways that others find MFH properties? (I find that they are not always the most abundant on the normal listing sites)

and finally what are some of the unexpected pitfalls that people fall into when attempting a plan such as the one I have laid out?

Thanks BP Community,

Roderick Byars