It was mostly due to my day job income and low cost of living over a long period of time; however, real estate accounts for about 50% of our income through a small portfolio of short, mid, and long term rentals. 

In those days it was possible to locate and tie up a “killer” deal, and close the transaction with absolutely zero of the investors own money.

First step - Set a 60 or 90 day goal to own your first property and get it done. 

. --- Who gets all the phone calls and wastes time calming a tenant down because the owner's contractor doesn't show up as scheduled after they took time off from work or a 3 day job takes 3 weeks?

Quote from @Joel Oh: Your business must make money day 1.It is so much more difficult to fix the model that is not making money than starting a new business that makes money day 1. 

NP here by day but want to start my real estate investing and don't know where to begin. 

Thanks for the link to your article.

I have read some articles that say assessments are up about 20 % .

Kings all day! 

At the end of the day if you run your numbers and analyze like 10 properties a day, and every single day scour the internet for anything new, you will eventually find something that works and know it almost immediately.