So, I haven't had the time or energy to devote to that effort...That said, I'm still a huge proponent of mentoring, and encourage anyone who is interested in taking up the challenge to find a motivated self-starter to take under their wing.

Approximately what percent of your costs are devoted to land purchase?

Would love to have rental properties too but my main limitation is time - I cannot devote the time it takes to look for, acquire & manage investment properties.

-You need to decide on an investing strategy-Learn your market and property values-Figure out how you will get leads and how you will keep track of those folks once you do get the lead-Decide on marketing activities for your particular investing strategy-Determine how much in money and time you are willing to devote to marketing to get your phone ringing-What about money for your deals?

Bill Gulley mentioned this already, but in my opinion this "is" the first place you need to start: figure out what the fair market value of the property is.Don't waste your time going through all these steps to only find that you would be over paying for the home.Make sure this venture is even worth pursuing before you devote your precious time in lining up all the logistics.

The latter forces you to devote energy to management; making sure they are asking the questions to sort the leads.

I am willing to either fly or work remotely, but either way I plan to devote 100% of my time and effort to learning as much as possible.

The problem is, most agents got into this business precisely because that's NOT what they wanted, so they don't devote themselves and don't rise about the competition.Then, there are those agents who recognize that most of their competition is lazy and looking to make a quick buck, and they realize that if they are one of the few who truly devote themselves to the business, they will make a lot of money.

If you are flipping, time to market is crucial, so how can you be sure the contractor will be able to devote several weeks in a row to get your project completed on time?

Both my wife and I work full time in Los Angeles and are unable to devote time to any other avenue of REI (although down the road I expect we will be more interested in exploring those different avenues).