If you can buy twenty houses in cash and think about financing later then quitting your job in a year should not be a problem.If you are a "total newbie" you should spend a few months reading before you jump in though.

I listed houses for twenty four years.

Yes, that was when I was in my twenties and didn't have kids.

Japan has been caught in one going on twenty five years.

Our water company can and does come after property owner for tenants bills even though we require- and have for twenty years- require all utilities be put in tenants name-- ironically I received a call yesterday from water co.

If one were to purchase one property a year for twenty years, end up with $20,000 a year in cashflow (which is very successful real estate investing IMO), you STILL are only making $20,000/year and still have many properties with large mortgages to pay off for many years, since much the the properties were likely leveraged highly.

if you ask twenty people what to do you will get twenty different answers especially if they are doing different kinds of deals and are in different markets.

Despite that four year setback, by my mid twenties I had several properties.

In our lease agreement we have a clause that states that if we see damage to the property we can go in and investigate without twenty four hour notice.

That's like  complaining about a bank cashier putting $1,000 in your new checking account when you open it with just twenty bucks.