Once those are under your belt you could petition private lenders. 

Not to mention, having at least one deal under my belt would give me some credibility and a lot more confidence.

I am a 3rd degree black belt and I have studied various arts for decades.You need to look at what is the mix of adults to kids ratio.

@Manesh Hardeo   I keep hearing about the west end and the beltline and I wonder how much of an impact the belt line will have on the west end home prices. 

The proverbial 30 - 40K property is extinct up here ... what you pay 20 - 40K for in the Rust Belt of midwest would set you back 100 - 140 here.  

All of the other posters definitely know their businesses, and once you get a couple of investments under your belts, you can venture out into riskier (potentially more profitable) areas.  

The long and the short of it is, even within this investing environment, a small set of factors accounts for somewhere around 70-90% of the median price of US home markets: median household income, rental vacancy rate, population growth over the last 50 years, and physical obstruction (green belts, oceans, mountains, can be natural or manmade).

hello all - Opinions on buying NPN's on bottom end properties in urban markets? Cleveland, Detroit?Cross off Chicago and other markets with tough foreclosure laws.What about huge tax bills? Will some counties abate if...

In the Atlanta Belt-line.

Although with much of the CA market its not like rust belt or other areas were you have a lot of homes that are pretty much derelict and not a lot of action.. most sellers in CA are somewhat intuned to the markets ..