My experience has been that purchase transactions where the buyer has no or little skin on the game have a default rate many times that of buyers who place a significant down payment into the deal.  

It was great to get our heads in the game, and got us to move quicker to get a house (since we were basically forced to get a pre-approved loan in order to tour houses...).

I have also have saved almost $50K so far to take a start in this game and also my personal credit score is above 750.I'd like someone to guide me purchasing my first property and want to kickstart with a small property first.

Others noted that the appreciation play could make it worth keeping, I tend to look more heavily on appreciation since real estate investing is more of a long term game.

Cash flow is a sucker's game.

A good one will also have skin in the game and will even be able to bring new acquisitions to your attention.

Somehow I think it's better to hold onto my own money and keep that dry powder on the sidelines waiting to get into the game if there are some emergency expenditures (haha, very likely with the kinds of deals I'm thinking about in class C neighborhoods).

I don’t mind having skin in the game either, but I know using private money is key to scaling one day and would like to get some experience with it now, even if it doesn’t fund a majority of the deal. 

So I require skin in the game (average is 5% to 15%) to offset this.

I’ve been researching a lot about the basics, but I know there’s so much more to learn, especially from those who’ve been in the game for a while.I’d love to hear from experienced wholesalers about their journeys and any advice you have for a complete beginner like me!