The first step was getting smart. Getting smart starts with reading and learning from the experiences of others. You don't have to go out and buy a property and learn from your own mistakes. With a little bit of patience, you can learn from others' mistakes and effective strategies that add up to some very basic know how. Before you fire live rounds, you learned some fundamentals right? Same applies in REI, IMO.
I'll go right to step two and say appreciate the power of leverage and protect your credit. Credit is money, real money. You can blow it or put it to work for you when you use it with discipline and with a deliberate purpose. Looks like you are onto that since you mentioned coming up with a down payment. Now get a job that pays as much as possible that will improve your creditworthiness and if at all possible allows you to make some inroads to being a connected investor. I already went past step one, so I'll stop now ... :-)
