Dave Ramsey is good at getting people out of debt and building for their future so I would recommend checking out his website, buying his book the Total Money Makeover, watching his debt free screams on YouTube, and/or listening to his daily podcasts.

I personally, would not use all of your 150-200k on one deal because now that your going to meetups and networking, you never know if a screaming deal comes your way. 

I still remember when people were screaming we're going to have hyper-inflation due to the massive printing of USD in 2009. 5 years later, we have lower interest rates compared to then.With the stock market in correction mode in the recent weeks, Janet Yellen has already back-peddled on her QE forecast.

If you check this post out, it's screaming decline across the board nationally for college and participation.

Now that that's out of the way, you don't necessarily have to be in a rush to keep taking down more properties if the numbers don't make sense, if you are unsure of the direction you want to proceed in, or if you need time to look into other strategies.Sounds like you deeply desire to work in real estate investing full time, but also feel like pursuing a higher income-earning potential as a safety net to ensure that you have the cash flow coming in to live off of as well as liquidity to make acquisitions simpler.If that is where you're at, it may make sense to shift from 50/50 or wherever your time is balanced now and go more 80/20 on your day job and lever out the REI tasks that you are doing now so that you can work on increasing your earning potential while not missing out on any screaming hot deals that may be in the pipeline.

@Kate J.

I'm guessing you would have screamed bloody murder if he hadn't. 

That screams HOUSE HACK.

Same as the corner preacher screaming “repent for the end draws near”.

A house with a bad old design like that screams that other issues are likely like terrible wiring, an ancient electric panel, aluminum wires, asbestos, lead paint, bad plumbing, and a creepy Norman Bate-style basement.