Due to us being fortunate enough to obtain scholarships for our undergrads, we have been able to pile away more than enough cash to keep a hefty emergency fund, pay closing costs on a large duplex, and even be ready to find another deal in Middle Tennessee! 

BP,I am looking for a new market to begin investing in and during my search I have added BPs new book "Long Distance Real Estate Investing" by David Greene as well as "Emerging Real Estate Markets" by Dave Lindhal to my collection. 

While I could use our VA benefits for the mortgage loan, I am trying to provide as much down-payment as possible without affecting my emergency savings so that the monthly mortgage payments will be lower than to finance the property 100%+ VA loan fee.  

Hold your cash as an emergency fund to cover HELOC payment.

I would rent as cheaply as possible and use the extra money to pay off debt if you have it or increase your emergency fund.

In general, I'd recommend making sure that you've secured one income stream (typically your W-2 job starting out) and building up some cash for emergencies before investing.

They are trustworthy enough that in a real emergency,  I wouldn't hesitate to tell them to fix it and send me the bill.

A google search of emerging quick service restaurants will provide you a list of some prospects to call on.

That’s a significant monthly expense to maintain if things went off the rails and we hit an emergency as we started investing (job loss, etc...). 

With cap rates so compressed, I'm looking for that off-market value-add play in an emerging market  (my backyard).