guys - sincere thank you for this enlightening thread.  

Wow, thanks for enlightening us, @Charles Chester.

If anyone has experience in this, please enlighten me!

I think he just starting analyzing real estate from abstraction but it's a good start, even until now I still have friends at Google that keep arguing renting is better (everyone has their own bias) maybe because he has misunderstanding . the one that really enlightens me is when I understand how successful real estate investors strategize and get the business plan executed, either through direct ownership or through partnership/syndication.To add point above, most money is made with "appreciation" when the acquisition is "done right" (good time, good location, good value add).My granddad ( he knows nothing of US tax code) kept saying this in 1950s to my mom "every time you have a little bit of money just keep buying land because money lost value".....this is my personal reason why I keep buying and selling outside tax reason.

I think you'd find it very enlightening...

I'm sure you'll find it enlightening, at the least, possibly even enraging...Google it.

I'm very grateful for the shadowing opportunities as they enlightened me to some of the best healthcare systems in the world.  

Please share or enlighten me on anything else I should keep in mind or be aware of as I'm still very very new to all of this!

I'm glad I asked the question and have been even more enlightened by the various responses.

The naive voter sometimes knows more than the "enlightened" college professor or the "educated" finance major.