Most of us visualize all the time, but rarely think about what we're doing.

Every deal increases your portfolio and gives you more experience.The final thing people rarely talk about when investing is the power of time.

This combination works well.  

In April this year we closed on our starter home, and have since been saving up and doing mountains of research into what to expect in this field.We don't have any kids and don't plan on having any until we have at least 5 doors of real estate, in any combination of either single or <4 unit multis.

Maybe it's because of covid but I rarely see networking events.  

I have wanted to get into real estate for some time now but we make about 50k a year combined income and didn't know much about it.

While I agree fully that the way to quickly build a portfolio is to leverage appreciation of value combined with loan amortization to create money for future downpayments, my point is simply don't fully rely on appreciation only at the sacrifice of cash flow. 

from my experience, its rarely a single mouse, poison outside the home and seal up the holes in the first and best step!

Investment properties have higher rates/fees, some combination thereof.

These are two separate strategies and you need to know how to analyze deals when sellers are using either strategy or a combination.