for starters take that 300$ investment your mother is going to hand over and go and buy a nice pair of slacks, shoe's and a long sleeve shirt.

There are a lot of realtors out there that might know residential properties / appreciation, but don't know squat about rental rates rental markets in general.The downside of using a knowledgable realtor is that you can pretty much guarantee you won't get a STEAL, but you should be able to find a good "starter" property.

But there is a real learning curve there.If you want to dip your toe in the waters of the accounting software ocean, you might want to try Stessa for starters.

Hi Nicholas,As others have mentioned, Portsmouth is basically a non-starter if you are looking to pay an MLS price for a property.

Our starter home was bought for 100K and for the last 3 years it has been rented.

@Max Briggs  I think it might be a good starter book for children who have parents that never mentioned investments. 

We need to tell people they can't grow almonds or rice in CA, for starters. 

I would subtract all due expenses, moving/set up expenses from banks asking price for starters.

Raising Private Capital by Matt Faircloth is a good starter for how to raise money, and it works for small deals too, so even if you don't end up syndicating, you can at least start doing some smaller deals on your own.

So your comment about raising taxes to pay the debt is 100% speculation, and in my opinion, a non starter.