As you will be learning, all real estate is local, so getting the flavor of how things are viewed in your area is another first step before diving in.

Pick your flavor.

It is a great place to share and enhance your REI knowledge.

Would that greatly enhance my ability/knowledge/skillset in order to prosper in the realm of real estate?

As a signatory (colloquially: co-signor) a parent is a tenant, with all the attributable rights: access, requests for repairs/enhancement/etc; the right to pick-up the phone and consume your time.  

My goals are hopefully pretty modest.....maybe ultimately 2 deals per year, as I work full time.I admit, that my knowledge is strongly focused on the nuts-and-bolts of the business.....design/construction/skilled trades.....and so I'm on here, trying to enhance my ability to bird dog deals as well as finance them.I've done a little research, and there's a fella buying distressed properties here and there in town, at roughly half of county tax assessment value (which seems to be roughly 80% of actual market value), then mortgaging the very same day at about assessment value.....then rehabbing and reselling within a few months.

There's some sort of chemistry involved, but the quick version is that it makes your meat much juicier and more flavorful than not brining.This link right here takes you to a pretty good catch-all brine:  http://www.food.com/recipe/basic-brine-for-juicy-t...It's basically just water, some salt, and some sugar.

Here's what I'm thinking about doing to make it more manageable and enhance revenues. 

Also nowadays with enhanced report feature they all look the same, which is nice and removes and preference for visual bias.

I'm a police officer and I've been contemplating getting my real estate license to further enhance my knowledge of real estate and get a better grasp at developing markets/buy and hold strategies/ and or rehabbing/flipping.