I'm fortunate I have a large amount of contacts to help with renovations since I'm already in the building industry (sales manager for Portland Glass).

Read, lots of research, network, due diligence and lastly google and YouTube become more your best friends when first investing.Good luck and lots of good fortune :)

I'm fortunate enough to have a couple of friends who have done well with real estate, and now I am learning everything I can.

I work a 9-5 at a fortune 500 company, I can't risk "Public nuisance" on my record just for an investment. 

@Conor Freeman I 100% agree with you - we need to pull big biotech firm downtown or even a fortune 1000 firm downtown.

One mistake I made due to having enough money to spare when first starting: My chosen marketing method for getting motivated seller leads was direct mail, and I spent a small fortune on that without really tracking and evaluating the marketing ROI, tweaking accordingly, and trying a different version.

We recently finished a 3 day workshop with Fortune Builders (Than Merrill).

Fortunately, one of my partners in that venture is a lawyer and she helped figure out the legal ramifications. 

It cost nothing to invest in this, but people have lost fortunes by not investing in it or not investing it wisely. 

Fortunately, the property is located on the busiest street in town, and I've been told that no unit has ever sat vacant for more than 5 months, all without ever going through a leasing agent/brokerage.