It depends on where you want to live, income, personality, and other factors.You could buy a large home and rent out the individual rooms to cover expenses, but this comes with problems.

I don't have personal experience with it, but when the app was first developed, I contacted the developer and put the app through a fairly robust test usage to see if it's something I would want to recommend to my clients (I'm a CPA).I think the app is great for its intended purpose and I do recommend it to my clients now (and have for about 18 months now). 

Evan took an online class and learned how to replaster walls and yes I do mean old school plaster.

I think they contain solid information and will help lay a good foundation as a beginner (Haha, I'm completely new to real estate as well, btw)I'm also going to be reading the following books, and hopefully I can finish all by the end of this month:1) The ABCs of Property Management2) The Advanced Guide to Real Estate Investing3) Long-Distance Real Estate Investing How to Buy, Rehab, and Manage Out-of-State Rental Properties (this might be the most important one to me personally)4) The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No (and Low) Money DownIn addition to reading, I'm consuming crazy amounts of youtube videos, and I'recommend you do this as well.

If you want to understand 5-year outlook, I'd look for multifamily construction data in your area to understand what level of new units is and will be coming online in the near future. 

I like to talk to people when I get out of the car and I think I can get a feel for things better in person.

We have done it both ways where we fund purchase and they cover rehab but if the individual is less experienced we do not do it that way, we have them put more money into the deal from the start and fund the draws, reason why is we also had a deal where the person said they would do this and never did anything and property sat and loan matured and it was a pain.Just recognize you will still not get 100% financing for the purchase, so you are putting money in up front. 

It started with really buying my own personal home, then selling and making a small profit.

I cold call and go direct to the seller and I have a 3 person team that pretty much just calls all day long for me.

What I've seen is that when asked to provide an assurance that a loan wouldn't be called because of a due on sale clause being triggered, the lender customer service typically just outright says it's not allowed, or default to a "no", because they see it as a black and white question, and miss why the due on sale clause is actually written into the mortgage document to begin with.If one is transferring property title from personal name, a Grant/Warranty Deed would be drafted/recorded to transfer title.