Trial and error was the best thing for me, however, it got frustrating after while and I finally reached out to my local Real Estate Investor Club.

Its either trial and error for free your way to the top, or split a profit with a mentor and get to the top faster.

Either from hiring a pro to teach you or through trial and error.  

My long term goal is to leave my day-time job (Project Manager for pharmaceutical research trials) and spend time RE Investing as my source of income and spend time with my children (10 weeks old and 3 years).

MBA is great, if you can get somebody else to pay for it :)Control Systems engineering helped to design automated business systems and assess what can be measured and controlled and what can't.Spacecraft engineering helped with risk management and contingency planning (multiple exit strategies).The rest was from DIY research, trial, and error.

On the edge of less than ideal areas, but I'be been fortunate with keeping better tenants in there and having a great property manager (that was a trial finding in itself).Chris

I hope I don't have to go through a very expensive trial and error route to find one. 

I have yet to use this website and I know they have a 3 day free trial but it’s called propertyradar, like I said not sure how it works yet I can let you know in a couple of weeks !

For example, I am suing someone now for non payment of rent and she requested a jury trial even though she knows she hasn’t paid rent for 6 months! 

The truth is, you could read 100 books and still not know enough because certain things need to be learned through trial-and-error.