While you are waiting to determine when you will enter the world of REI I suggest crunching numbers on properties in the area you are looking.  

Does anyone have advice on "crunching numbers" for a vacation property?

My latent passion for real estate investing was recently rekindled and here I am ready to dive in and start creating my own deals.I've been getting out looking at open houses to get a sense of my local market, crunching some numbers, and reaching out to people to start building up some contacts in the residential real estate world.My ideal path is to do some rehabs to generate some more capital and then move to buy/holds.  

In order for the property to qualify, you must have used it as your primary residence for at least 2 of the last 5 years.The reason you need an accountant is to handle the tax consequences and to do the hard core number crunching on your options.

Make sure the equity is there, or it really hurts. 70% equity is a good number to hold on to when you are crunching your numbers, and don't smudge it unless your market dictates it.

You know I'm looking at your numbers and I'm just not feeling excited about the deal.Check out some of the Crunching Numbers posts at:http://forums.biggerpockets.com/viewtopic.php?

You might develop some type of factor to utilize with what the price is (i.e. .85% of sales price), but when actually crunching numbers I would recommend calculating all of these out.

You might want to check out some of the Crunching Numbers posts at:http://forums.biggerpockets.com/viewtopic.php?

It was the ONLY property I bought at the foreclosure sale last year, and I researched, drove by, and crunched numbers on EVERY single one of them last year (about 700-800 last year).

I'd either crunch the numbers again or look more closely at it.