School loans and auto loans is currently killing me right now and tying up my income that i could be putting towards investing.

In a previous life, I was a high school teacher just outside Compton.

I have found a couple of 2005 ish duplexes not too far from challenger school that will cash flow 500 a month with 25% down.

I am currently in real estate school, and plan to begin a career in real estate as an agent next year.

So low crime rate, better schools, hospitals and all of the above.

On the phone I tell my students in the beginning especially,  they need to walk through 100 houses to get a feeling for their market, so if it's a good school district and it's an area that you really like as far as schools and crime and so forth go see the seller.

As for the new apartments, I would check the enrollment numbers for the school, most of them are growing by leaps and bounds.  

We had recently refi'ed our primary home to a 10 year mortgage and my wife is a school teacher.I ended up finding a partner who could get the mortgages and I backed the LLC partnership 75/25.

@Paul Higdon welcome to the site.Few things you can do to get started.Go to school & earn a RE license.Network with local investors.Read all the good info here on BP.Locate & purchase a rental property. 

The Bankruptcy definitely helped that, and the schools got killed, taxes are high, and Mella Roos (sp?)