I've been meaning to get into real estate investing and if I could turn this opportunity into something that could eventually make me money or even house hack for the time I'm there, that would be great.Things I'm looking for:Low Budget ~ 1,200/monthGood Neighborhood ~ is this possible on the budget?

I live in a fancy neighborhood & receive tons of junk mail from realtors.  99% go into the recycle bin, since I'm not interested, but I do open and examine the handwritten ones that appear to be cards ( like a B-day or X-mas type card). 

Reach out to them and see if they'd be able to meet up with you and learn about what they're doing and maybe some of their connections in the neighborhoods. 

I know good school rating & job growth; is important but I'm driving around Atlanta (windy hill, Austell)and the school rating is not great, nor the neighborhoods but yet the prices have gone up from 80k to 280k.

First off - I'm total noob so trying to learn a lot.I'm looking to buy a condo or townhouse which I plan on keeping long term as a rental property.From looking at Zillow I noticed that there are some large-ish neighborhoods where there are few to no properties for rent, and others where there are several properties for rent in a condensed area.All things being equal, is it better to avoid areas where there's a high concentration of rental properties?

I opted to not turn on the water since no one is living there and it’s expensive for that neighborhood to have water turned on.

Hello Bigger PocketsI am currently using listsource to pull list of specific neighborhoods.

[If others disagree, I'd like to read why].So if your motivation is purely to maximize your current investment, perhaps find out how much the cheapest fixer-upper small studio, in as worse a neighborhood as you could stomach, in as far a radius from your work as commutable, would cost.

There are a lot of different neighborhoods and the value vary dramatically, of which I don’t know except Zillow’s estimates.I can take a guess about repair values by looking at the pictures and a little more by talking to the listing agent, but I would have to look in person to have a real idea. 

Property values, trends, neighborhoods,etc.