Fear of Starting Out

[I Okwuje]

I am enthralled with becoming a Real Estate Investor and would really like to find a REI mentor or someone who I can "shadow", as a way to gain practical knowledge to partner with the info I've gotten from this forum and books.

My husband and I live in Northern Virginia and currently rent. I would really like for us to take some action this year, but I just don't know the right way to go. Rather than plopping the money that we've been saving for a downpayment, given home prices and the real estate market in this area, I would like to build up some equity and cash flow by purchasing a rental property. Next year, or whenever the market stabilized, make the move to get into our first home (or condo) purchase.

I've been reading through this forum and another one I found online, and I have been reading some recommended books
-Investing in Duplexes, Triplexes, and Quads, by Larry B. Loftis
-The Foreclosures Guide to Making Hug Profits Investing in Pre-foreclosures without Selling your Soul, by Alexis McGee
-Rental Property Investing: Know When to Buy, Hold and Flip by the editors of Socrates
-The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller et al.
-The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner by David Bach

However, all the reading is kind of making me feel paralyzed and over-anxious, as there is so much that can go wrong (yes, there's so much that can go right too!). Can anyone suggest a good way for me to go about finding a mentor or someone who would be willing to show me the ropes? I have a feeling that the first deal is the scariest, since it's crossing over into unknown territory, but that it gets significantly less scary after that.

Thanks so much! I'll keep reading this forum! An awesome, awesome resource.