Just seems strange people hate people who ask for money for knowledge (gurus) but that’s happening with even some of the most benevolent names in the field, even bigger pockets big names.Just not sure if this becomes a “just fall in and you’ll learn” type of thing or if I’m missing some good starting point for someone at my level who knows quite a bit but just doesn’t seem to be putting all the pieces of the puzzle together yet.Hi Stace.Here is advice based on 20 years of very active real estate investing + quite a few years as an investment (nowadays, 90% STR's) specialized real estate agent in the Sedona/Northern AZ area:Buying properties for yourself or in syndication (which is very different from investing in a real estate investment fund):1) Interview several real estate agents in hot investment areas (whatever type of investment you are interested in- you're the boss.

Nowadays, water run about $100/month per apartment, and even here, for $50K it's not worth it, particularly if I have no problems to begin with.On the other hand, for a side by side duplex, the cost of re doing the plumbing may be minimal.I looked into separating gas charges for a co-worker, who rents an apartment, and the landlord splits the monthly $30.00 cooking gas bill with him.

Everyone goes to college nowadays, so shouldn’t the dropout stand out?

@Lance BolenCongrats on skipping the college route, totally a waste of time and money nowadays....

Nowadays I never ever estimate the higher end of an ARV range.

The guys you see working on the large erections of steel at such a facility. 

Or you may be able to re-borrow from one of the sellers you paid off to get the LTV down to where the bank wants it on a different property or even pay the whole note off.I was hesitant to buy on contract for a long time, nowadays it's my go-to!!

@Riley F.99.9% of all calls and emails we do are with tire kickers unfortunately.Eventually what happens over time is you develop certain questions where you are able to weed out the tire kickers within the first few minutes of a call.An exit strategy nowadays that I tend to use is "I'm sorry to cut this short but I am just about to jump into a meeting, feel free to give me call later today" Most of the time they never call which just proves they were never serious in the first place.

PS: Nowadays I have no problem paying a contractor for 100% of a project because I have more money than time, but I think there's a TON of value in doing some things yourself or doing some GCing on your first few projects.

It's true, they are not as easy to come by nowadays since the market is saturated with Investors, but with 1.