While in college and finding your comfort zone and passion, work part-time or as an intern for a real estate investment company or for a real estate investor.Real estate investments and investor has many segments even within this seemingly simple term or phrase.

George Frye,I am not trying to discourage you from learning more about the finance segment of the real estate business.

Not sure if you listened to it yet or not, but this is exactly what I talked about recently on The BiggerPockets Podcast: Show 25 My segment comes on around the 48 min mark.

:The fact that house price growth in Canada generally appears to be significantly more than those in the US in the last few years does not mean that there aren't certain cities in the US were house prices are well beyond what is considered average either in US or Canada.There are always certain segments of a market where prices are so abnormal that some might exclude such markets when trying to determine general market average to avoid skewing the data. 

If you are going to only hold 2-3 properties, Jon's recommendation is spot on.If you ever grow to larger scale then the metrics change significantly during most market conditions and Bill is right.There is a whole segment of finance related to the effective use of capital and planning for contingency reserves is a big part of it.

This is just one example of using a specialist from my segment of the market.  

Along with the new affordable condo inside-the-Loop for sale, the leasing of condos and townhomes is the fastest growing market segment right now.

Once you know your market well, and know what segment of the market you want to serve, it should be fairly simple to whittle down the list of possibilities to between one and a few that will serve nicely, and concentrate on those.

It's the fastest selling segment of real estate for the past 3 months - that and foreclosures/short sales.

Study marketing, segmentation and niches.