Quote from @Jose Saladin: I want to purchase my sisters house as my first investment.

Read "Long-Distance Real Estate Investing" by David Greene for starters.

Have been talking about getting into real estate investing for the last 2-3 years and finally pulled the trigger on a 3 unit house hack in Soulard that will be closing later this month and will be self-managing the property.I'm trying to network a bit with other investors, build a solid team of contractors / handymen, and set my systems up in way to scale, but also so my tenants have a good experience.

As for trusting folks, just ask for their experience and evidence of it.

My local market is cost prohibitive to invest in and the thought of assembling a "team" of unknowns in another market was scary. 

@Ajay Bodas Transferring a 1031 exchange property from a revocable trust to an LLC can be done, but timing is crucial to avoid IRS scrutiny.

I really trusted my agent and knew several people who had invested in Reno so I took the leap after trying and failing for years to buy my own home in really high cost cities where I lived (NYC, DC, SF Bay area). 

RE investing definitely isn’t rocket science.

Hey everyone, I'm new to real estate investing and in the process of setting up my LLC in North Carolina.

Great questions - a lot of our borrowers will tap the equity using a refinance in order to purchase their next investment property.Feel free to give me a shout anytime, happy to help!