I was born and raised in Tampa and I have worked in many areas of the real estate industry over a 30+ year period.

You can learn a ton about the industry and get an immense amount of investment and property knowledge all before you've done a deal of your own.I got licensed because of my interest in real estate and my desire for a real estate focused career change.

It sounds strange but lenders are allowed to put rules OVER the Fannie/Freddie rules...we call them OVERLAYS in the industry. 

Diversity in Industry – What are the major economic industries in the city?

Would like advice on markets to focus on - my key hypothesis is to focus on markets with decent employment rates, growing population and presence of contemporary industries such as tech, healthcare, finance, etc and not relying on manufacturing/agriculture.

I graduate from my master's soon and I'm interested in breaking into the industry.

I see my funds as better used in the real estate industry, so I was actually pretty fast to cash out my 401k funds.

That led me to a financing career as an Finance Manager win the auto industry, where i stayed for about 5 years before leaving to have my daughter.

I would advise reading several books on it and partnering with someone in your market in the industry.

My thoughts are, pay off home loan, take out a (Home Equity Line of Credit) which will amount from 70-75% of the equity I have in the property, with the notion of what it should appraise for considering I'm in the industry, then go maybe down south, possibly Florida, were homes are alot cheaper than NY City with a significant amount of cash from taping into my equity and find homes to BRRRR?