New Investor NYC, NY 10003 Need assistance analyzing deals

[Brady Boyer]

My name is Brady Boyer. I recently graduated college from Penn State with a degree in Accounting and Finance. I have been learning about real estate for a couple of years now through various classes offered at Penn State as well as through reading books and blogs. My ultimate goal is to achieve financial freedom (which I define as not having to work if I decide I don't want to), and I believe real estate is the best option to accomplish that. I currently have not completed any deals, and I have to work on paying off my $85k in student debt before I can consider investing.  In the meantime, I want to learn about analyzing deals so that when I do have spare money to invest I am ready to invest and know how to analyze and find deals.  Given my background I am familiar with how to calculate NOI and the additional ratios.  What I am struggling with is how to find the information so that I can analyze it.  For example on Zillow you might get revenue information but not estimates of cost or vacancy.  Do you have to talk to the seller / real estate agent to get this information?  What sites / sources do you guys use?  I would appreciate any advice.

Nice to meet you!

Brady