I have the capital but not sure if I want tie it up for up to 12 months or get caught in a quagmire.Half of me just wants to pull the trigger as there is little risk and experience is the best teacher.

@Heaven Boswell, failure can be a great teacher and it sounds like you're willing to be a great student.

Experience is a cruel teacher, but learning and safe guarding your home first is important when you are getting started.

I’m a non-CPA accountant and my wife’s a special ed teacher.

And if your mentor works on flips, you could offer your handy skills, because I hear investors say all the time how doing fixer work themselves really helped them in their business (experience is the best teacher and all that).

I'll talk to my teacher for further details and the such on what zipcodes I should consider.

I look for guys who are what Dave Ramsey would call Teachers at Heart.  

I have found by "doing" was the best teacher.

Now I am not able to go to foreclosure sales at all since I am a school teacher as a second career.

It will give stats on how much is spent per student, teacher to student ratio, if there is gang activity, and a lot of other information.