I think getting started in real estate is hard but you got to get started somehow.Learning local values of  listeds and solds are very important plus your local property management lawsThen learning how private lending works and marketing for joint venture partners I think are the other critical skills to becoming a millionaireYou are not going to be able to do it all by yourself so realize  Real Estate is a team sport Being able to pick up the phone and get money quickly is very important@mason

This gets your arv- after repair value Then you need to learn the skills to accurately pin down how much repairs a house needs to get it to that value. 

I'm transitioning from being a part time investor to a full time investor and will be focussed on flipping until I master that skill.

Warren Buffet said:  buy what's hated, sell what's loved.My vantage point from working with 100's of new folks in my REIA, is new folks all try to do the same thing and they mostly fail because of many many reasons:  too much competition from each other, from out of towners throwing cash at marketing, from Wall Street etc,  the deal type really doesn't fit their personality or skill level.Good idea to ask this question.  

@Wendy BykowiczWelcome to the site.Decent amount of skills that should be valuable to would be mentors.Good luck to you.

Any place you invest you need to have one of the following be true in my opinion:1) purchase considerably below market value (very challenging in a red hot market)2) force appreciation though increase rents or rehab (easier if you have skills/desire/patience)3) be able/willing to wait for the next cycle (5, 7,10,15, 30 years, think Texas in the late 80s)4) have great positive cash flow that you can weather rent loss or massive reductions in rent to the tune of 30-50%.

I am in South Florida and cooling is vital of course. 

This REIA has many evening classes on all the real estate skills you'll need.  

It's just semantics but if you can find a property that can support that level of debt, with your value add skills, you likely can make it work.  

There are a lot you can do to build your skills but if I would recommend one thing is to listen to the podcasts.