It takes some practice but it gets you good results for free.

I do not want to make that a common practice since I am trying to reuse the same bucket of money over and over again.As far as knowing what expense amounts to use.  

Since my first two homes were purchased as owner occupants, I just decided to go with the practice of---you got 'em---so now do something with them! 

They'll start to point things out you may have missed.After doing this a few times you can get comfortable that your numbers are about 80% correct and you can just build in a 20-25% contingency for the stuff you missed Now you're ready to start pulling the triggerOf course you can ignore all of the hard work up front and just dive in...but then you also need to be prepared to lose $20k...if you don't have $20k to lose...spend the time to do your homework and practice first.

Lots of good, practical information, especially keeping emotions in check when investing in RE.I love SFH, but I agree with him about MF. 

Pretty practical project management and risk management stuff you will be familiar with based on your military service.Go achieve your dreams.Thanks for the service, keep up the good fight for freedom.

To be honest with you people do not mind lend relatives money for medical tuition bills and will not want to get into lending practice unless there is a profit sharing scheme.

Plus...escape velocity...Episode 113 – Jay Papasan - Very practical slow and steady adviceEpisode 221 - Tim Shiner - his concept of equity build up and "shearing the sheep" shows some of the flexibility of real estate vs a 401k Last but not least, I also recommend all the tax advice given by my fellow CPAs on the BP Podcast.

I have been browsing different deals in the area to practice while we save up more $$ for a downpayment.

The item that I'd want to make you aware of is... once you are licensed in VA - you'll need to find someone in VA that will allow you to hang your license with them so that you can be on active status (which is a requirement by NC Real Estate Commission) despite not practicing real estate in VA.