But, if you have a good general business background, the education to understand more complex business and finance aspects, have money, have the time to devote and have experience in dealing with the public, a multi-family could be your first good investment.....it's just that most newbies don't have these assets or qualities

We only use SF costs to determine if we want to devote more time to looking into a lead.The J Scott book is a good one.  

The first success has motivated me to get serious and devote the time and resources to start getting deals flowing through the pipeline.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timed souls who know neither victory nor defeat. 

I'm devoting FT to the effort - am in the same boat as you guys in terms of price points and geographic area of interest (the 130K sounds like a 900+/- SF rancher in Aberdeen); and I have a little more working capital at-hand than you guys which might allow for cash purchase and rehab.  

But if the landlord must devote time to tenant failure to comply with the lease, that is a chargeable fee too (office fee, paperwork fee, management fee, or whatever). 

I've got under a year before I'm looking at devoting a large amount of time to real estate investing.

Don't get me wrong, I have clients I run comps for all the time but I like to get an idea of what they are all about and what their goals are before devoting to much time to them. 

Omar, here are my three "D's - determination, discipline and devotion. 

They're all 'lifers,' i.e. people who stay in the military till retirement, and for the most part they do very well.My question is about a kid who serves four years in the military and then gets out of the military with $50,000 in his or her bank account.I guess it's kind of a silly question because obviously someone with a good self-education could take $50,000 and put it down on a fix-and-flip, and stand a decent chance of making some money off of it then going on to the next investment.Such a person would have free college + a small living allowance from the GI Bill, so could be finishing up college, maybe working part-time too, but devoting most of his or her time out of college/work to real estate investment.