So start with the goal.

Ive been trying for years to use my home equity to start investing in other propeties or apt buildings.

When you do this long enough, you get an idea of what a tester asks about or they start digging.  

If you just hire the cheapest or first PMC you speak with and it turns into a bad experience, please don’t assume ALL PMC’s are bad and start trashing PMC’s in general.

The BiggerPockets meetup section and Meetup.com can be great places to start!

Hello @Camille Romero congrats on getting started on your real estate journey. 

It depends on your financial strength, the quality of the property, how many properties you own, etc.I like to start with one significant expense and three months of vacancy.

Great start on investing!

She has some stock (maybe 50k), some retirement IRA of around 100k which I believe she has started to take and then maybe 20k in her savings account.

I am considering getting into this space (looking at some courses), but worried that its too late, and that deep local market knowledge/understanding of buyers/connection with developers etc is required to make this work, which only incumbent/long term investors will have and would be hard for a new entrant starting from scratch to catch-up...is my hypothesis valid in your opinion ?