If you are in a stage of being conservative and are looking for a safe place to place your money with steady returns, this is a great route.  

We are just in the beginning stages of doing our due diligence for the duplex we are interested in so we haven't even talked to a bank yet.

And annoy the guy with elementary questions while paying this experienced attorney to hold your hand......been there, done that.

I absolutely loved interior design and staging as well as found showing properties to be an adventure.

Would I be better off trying to flip them and then do the typical staging and hope either an investor or first time home buyer with a low budget offers on the house, or would I be better of to renovate then fill the homes with renters and then list the house for investors only with tenants all ready filling the homes with positive cash flow?

However, more often than I realized, that is the best option for me at this stage of the game.

I agree with Nancy, this does seem a little staged.

I also found a lot of really good info and a lot of really great community members on BP that can help you in any stage in your investing career whether you're a beginner or expert.  

We both work full time jobs and have 2 elementary school ages kids so as you can imagine we stay really busy.

Many people get stuck in the preparation stage and take years to get started.