You might be the educator in this situation. 

Network and educate yourself.

Please inform me, educate me, I'm ready for all you have to offer.

So basically im sayIng with no hard experience besides BP podcasts and plenty of other self education.. is it too risky to invest OOS ?

Here today gone tomorrow.Your equity is not earning it's keep but as long as you use real estate to park your excess cash you will not be able to do much better. 

Just something I happen to realize today, are they even a tool anymore?

As long as I am happy with where I am today, holding will never make my life worse and only increase long-term prospects for a comfortable life. 

Sounds like you've done the education, good luck on getting your feet wet! 

My second event i went on Craigslist to find an ad came across an ad saying Become a real estate investor earn while you learn, thought i give it a shot this guy was telling me about Renatus and great mentors they had he invited me to a meeting in south jersey on a Thursday night to watch a guy name scott rowe who has made millions of dollars off real estate education, before i went i had to research what renatus was and who these people the guy was telling me about needless to say i was skeptical about rowe and this guy name brian meara they said he does shortsales and i ask the guy who invited me what shortsale was and he said the host will tell me, sounded like he didnt know what it was either, for the most part all he said was that this was an opportunity of a life time, wasn't sold on that either so i sat there for about an hour and 20 minutes listening to scott say he was from Chicago show me picture of  his community a pie chart how to get into renatus how to pay for very expensive education how to get the money blah blah blah caught in quick that this was an mlm meetup.

Unless your goal is to teach, being educated without taking action is not going to get you very far.Champaign is a city with great investing dynamics - the best thing to do is get started.Is there anything stopping you from going out and buying a property?