@Sam LaGrassa You've listed one of the fundamental mistakes an investor can make, creating a business model on hope and speculation.

I have been reading the fundamentals about the different niches in real estate, but I would like to get real experience. 

@Morgan Klein - here is the fundamental error new landlords make. 

If I was in your shoes, I would start going through the Biggerpockets podcast and webinar archive and finding episodes that our geared towards beginners and the tips for networking, building a core group of contacts, and learning the fundamentals of finding and analyzing deals. 

The underlying investment has to be fundamentally sound. 

If you want to dig deeper into the details once you have the fundamentals down, find some books to study & start running the numbers on properties using the BP Calculators!

I want to be able to improve the property somehow, create equity, and a place that someone is proud to rent.Solid fundamentals.

From all the reading material and bigger pockets podcast I've come to the conclusion that acquiring leads and learning rehab cost is fundamental to most real estate investing vehicles.

The math is easy: nothing/zip/nada/zero.Conversely, if you change your tactic and start making offers at say 75-90% of list price, and actually pick up a couple of fundamentally sound properties as a result, how will that change your overall financial picture?

It's a fundamental concept used in commercial real estate.