I am a little apprehensive so i just want to bounce it off those who are more seasoned to see your thoughts.  

If you bounce from agent to agent, you're not showing any loyalty doubt you'll get a discount.

That said, in my opinion, if you have the fortitude to bounce back from that, it's probably the best $20,000 in educational money you ever spent.

We'd bounce ideas, problems, deal reviews, share experiences or whatever with the rest of the group.

I would also love to find some good local mentors that are willing to meet a couple times a month so I can bounce ideas off of them and mitigate future rookie mistakes.

I would do this by putting down 20-25% and then renting out for positive cashflow and hanging onto the property until prices bounce back.Where I'm lacking is knowledge about the US markets (where to invest).

I'm sure it wont take me 5 or 10 more deals to figure this out but I don't want somebody to show me the ropes then I bounce on them I know that time is money that why I would be interested in sticking around to share the wealth.

So I'd have to sell more than twice as many investor homes than retail homes to get comparable commissions.The other thing I'm bouncing around is whether I should stay with my discount broker that offers 100% commission with no day to day support, or join a traditional broker (with a strong brand name) that will take a big chunk of my commission, but will provide significant training on traditional real estate listings and buyer representation and will also allow me to focus on investors and/or retail buyers.

The only reason you wouldn't get the message is if we're bouncing.

Do not hesitate, to post questions and bounce ideas around in applicable forums.