My father owns a construction company in my hometown, so I have spent my fair share of summers swinging hammers and digging holes.I am employed as a full time engineer and I am looking towards real estate to supplement my income and build a more stable future for my fiancé and myself in this exciting stages of our lives. 

I have an initial goal of attaining $3,000 per month ($36k annually) in income derived from real estate investments in order to supplement my full-time job.To kickstart this post, I thought I'd ask some questions to the community that I've been pondering over the course of my real estate education:First, market timing: I have the sense that the Dallas market has been on the upswing for the past several years, accelerating even more rapidly since the announcement of several major companies (including Toyota) moving to Plano.  

My goal is to purchase rental properties to supplement my current income.

Real estate investment is a great supplement to teaching, and if you love teaching, which I'm sure you do, the income that you receive from real estate investing can relieve you from the financial burdens that unfortunately those of us in the teaching profession now I have to endure.

We are possibly looking to buy a duplex as investment rental property, live in one side and renting out the other side to supplement our retirement income.

Really looking for something to supplement my income and possibly become a full time gig where I can be my own boss.

Yes, it can be used for it, however, I'd suggest investing otherwise and supplementing.

I'm now realizing that I could slow down at work and use multiple beach properties to supplement what I would have earned at work and maybe even eclipse my income so that I could work at whatever pace I wanted to.

I have an 8-to-5, but will need to supplement my income when I retire a decade or more down the road -- not to mention the need to put my daughter through college in a few years!  

Our buy and hold strategy is purely for income supplementation and to leverage into additional buy and hold strategies.