Not really, but I knew I needed to be home with my family...not 100 miles away in a town I considered a strategic military target.

Of course there will be expenses over the years for maintenance, property management ect , but in the short term on paper you are cash flowing a nice ROI.Show your wife the numbers take her for a nice Sunday drive past the ole rental property (strategically forget to mention that it might need a new roof in 5 years) and voila she might just hand you 20K next time. ;-) 

Think strategically - for example, because of the way January 1 fell this year (on a weekend), it gave me until the 3rd to pay all of my city property taxes without penalty.

Please go and talk to an accountant for some strategic planning. 

The key is beging smart with the money you DO have and strategizing.

The purpose of this post is to start a meaningful discussion to find potential partners in real estate investors, builders, handyman, property management, and real estate development while gaining knowledge of each in...

I'd like to up my knowledge baseline so I can be strategic about my first steps in REI. 

Total returns can be subdivided into many different "flavors" (cash flow, mortgage pay down, tax savings, appreciation) and can be strategically shifted and reclassified from one kind to another by a skilled operator, or accidentally by an ignorant one. 

I encourage you to stay in school for now and build strategic relationships and learn as much as you can on the side about investing until you can start to transition from the rat race to your passion of real estate investing.

There are strategic directions you can go where you can cater to your professional background more directly - however I think 'building value' is what business and RE is all about - so if you can use your financial background to 'build value' -say with technology to provide more useful tools or insight, great.