I was born in Ukraine, but immigrated to the US with my family at the age of 5.

Even for its age the house inspected well and the numbers all made sense. 

You might be able to determine the likely area to target based on the average age of the homes built in an area and if the majority of homes haven't had permits pulled for updates, but I prefer to grid the city and drive every street. write down the potential houses, go back and look up the owners and send them mail, skip trace them for phone numbers, look them up on social media and in some way contact them.

In this day and age it is possible to run your entire LIFE via computer...

The middle-aged mutant Ninja Monkey will tell you wats tos doos.So with little money the only thing you can do really is use that money to make a (little bit) more.So now you have $3K and a little bit more.You then use that money to make even a little bit more, but more than that previous "little bit more" you made, because you invested  that $3K+ "a little bit more".

Our goals are to have a 50/50 of equities/RE for our retirement – and to possibly build a bridge of RE income that can carry us from 50 to legal retirement age, whatever that has become by then.

I have a big head start on you guys age wise.   

Here's the wonderful thing about being your age. 

Had one woman who kept telling me I looked "great for my age" and she hoped she looked so good when she got to be as old as she thought I was. 

Once you establish a foundation of education and you pick a niche, then it'll be time to start pursuing your first deal.If you are driven, disciplined, and focused, you may be able to retire off real estate by the age of 60.