The fact that as an agent you must constantly prospect new people and communicate with your sphere of friends, family, coworkers to grow your business is an unintended benefit.I've been very suprised to learn who else is into investing, buying or selling just by reaching out to my sphere during normal prospecting.

@Cory WeberCongrats on the baby...If you focus on calling your sphere of influence (friends, family, co-workers, vendors you might know), and open houses on the weekends, you don't have to go cold turkey.

You Google "how to grow my sphere of influence" and that will give you some guidance.

Then move into bigger projects as you gain experience, confidence, increased market knowledge and an increased sphere of contractors and lenders.

The major difference here is that the recession in 2008 was caused players within the real estate sphere.

NO - NOT EVER - NO WAY - NO HOW (thank you Wizard of Oz)!!!

I plan on holding the property for the full 10 years per the OZ program.

As other have said, you need to have savings and a plan because it can take a bit to launch depending on your sphere of influence and learning curve.

I am the "go to" guy in my markets because, I have developed a sphere to find off market deals, my firm has hand designed proprietary investment analysis tools and my business is built around the investor with several properties thats in the "whats next" stage.

The brokerage-level training is more geared towards the nuts and bolts of what to do first and how to grow organically with sphere of influence and other lead sources you may already have on hand without knowing it.Network network network.