So do your due intelligence accordingly. 

They won't tell you not to invest right now or even that they wish they hadn't invested before '08; they'll tell you to invest intelligently.

@Ranga Narapuram Yes exactly - government is artificially propping up the market now.

I guess I'm just turned off my the artificial part of social media, because it seems like big influencers want hours of our time on their content, but won't partake themselves, and maybe that's just how it works for those "successful" people.

Yes, you will have to jump into the pool at some point, but throw a floatie on your arm at least first (i.e. have some intelligent idea of what exactly you're doing and how to mitigate risks). 

If you're not personally budgeting, building an emergency fund (which you can later actually invest (in an intelligent manner) if you'd like/feel lucky) and clearing out "bad debt" you're could run into trouble.Have a plan, have goals and don't be afraid to ask when you don't know the answer (especially your potential/future tenants, I learn new stuff during property viewings all the time).Best of luck!

I'm still an active investor/GC, although much less nowadays, and have got into artificial intelligence and software for real estate. 

You MUST use intelligent SELLER MARKET strategies and that either pay more, or have winning TERMS, it's just that simple. 

Get with the times or be destroyed by people like me that leverage intelligence, technology and data to get ahead in this game!

I don't have any real estate experience, although I do have a decent amount of book knowledge on the topic.In my day job, I help companies improve profitability by using artificial intelligence, natural-language processing, and statistical models to sift through big data (yes, ALL the buzz words).