BUT the fundamentals are the same.

I am on the fence on signing up for this course: https://courses.propertymetrics.com/join/iaf/I'm in a highly active and regimented education-focused period right now and one of my big interests is leveraging some personal relationships I have to get further involved in commercial real estate investing, but its the fundamentals that I know I need work on right now to prepare for that. 

I believe wholesaling is a good start for building the fundamental skills and developing the relationships necessary to accomplish that goal.

If you are investing in a smaller town with a regional college, just look at the same fundamentals as you would anywhere else.

hl=1Also as Bill Gulley mentioned nothing is more important than learning the fundamentals.  

Also, get some good books on the fundamentals of real estate investing.

I would start by digging into the fundamentals of your target market, finding out property prices, neighborhoods that meet your goals.

Lago Vista has the same core fundamentals as the already hot hill county lakeside markets of Lakeway, Westlake, Steiner Ranch, etc. … multiple golf courses, lakefront community parks, and reputable school districts.

@Alec DeAngelo there's already plenty of great feedback in this thread--I would agree with most people that $10k is probably not worth it--esp. given that all of the most fundamental info is widely available for free (or for a few bucks for a book).Having said that, I do think that having a mentor of some type can be extremely valuable, and that a truly experienced mentor can provide value above and beyond what forums, books, podcasts, etc. can provide. 

Any lending decision, whether private or conventional, fundamentally comes down to what are sometimes called the "three Cs" of lending: collateral, credit, and capacity.