My goals/reasons for joining BP would be to attain knowledge on how to acquire over time a small portfolio of rental properties that cash flow/break even on an annual basis.  

Are two bedroom, B properties under 50K attainable in those areas? 

I am currently working on my pre-licensure course in order to attain my salesperson license, hopefully here in the next couple months.

I hope to attain enough passive income to sustain myself and not work paycheck to paycheck.

I personally believe that the better way to judge the education of a series of books is by the success that had been attained solely through the education of that book.I've taught Real Estate between 2007 to 2015 in order to teach beginning Investors how to really understand the Financials in a much more sophisticated way and apply it to ANY investment, not just Real Estate.You would learn things like Discounted Cash Flows (DCF), Internal Rates of Return (IRR), Mortgage Analysis and Amortization, etc.Unfortunately, many of the students who read Books like these wound up investing in higher Cash Flow / Lower Appreciation Areas while they lived in the very high Appreciation Cities and neighborhoods.The results are that a lot of the Students completely missed the boat in areas that skyrocketed.For example, while I and several of my personal students bought a 3 Unit Brownstone in Bed-Stuy for $900k, put in $300k or renovations, the building today is worth $2.2 Million.We purchased with an 80% LTV Mortgage of $720k so our down payment was $180k.

The more lines of credit you have, generally the higher credit score you will attain (again, this is contingent upon how well you manage those lines of credit, missing payments will turn these into negatives).

It really is a great resource and makes the world of real estate investing attainable for us beginners.

My goal in general, as is most people's on BP, is to attain a level of financial freedom where I am not worried about my next paycheck and provide for my parents and future family. 

The proponderance of investors on BP who have attained 7 figures of PROFITs from rental have all been from coastal markets such as LA, SF, SD, Bay Area, NYC, Seattle, and Hawaii.

If you truly are serious about investing in the near future, you can always develop a roadmap/gameplan to attain your goal regardless of how financially qualified/unqualified you may be.