Three weeks of good study can put you in a totally different frame of mind and an understanding of RE that will answer your questions as they all are due to the fact that you are targeting one thing, asking how cold to keep the strawberry icecream.

Keep posting, asking questions STUDYING all the forums and most of all enjoying the amazing game of crei.

Happy studying…

I want to connect with others with experience and network, learn the vocabulary, study strategies, and eventually make my first purchase by the time I am 26, if I can come up with a plan to do it.

Of course, different risks need to be managed when doing this, but the pool of opportunities is much bigger.The other key learning for me was the 50%/2% screening rule which I learned from studying MikeOH's and Jon Holdman's frequent lessons on this topic.

Study, study, study.

There have been numerous academic studies that show that the large proportion of one's returns are determined by ASSET ALLOCATION.

As Charles sort of suggested, there's probably some sort of economics-based differential equations that could be used to model return vs risk vs time in various investment activities.While it probably wouldn't be useful in real life (not sure you could tune the inputs well-enough to be meaningful), you could probably play around with various inputs to get a feeling for their sensitivities to one another.If I were smarter, I'd probably be able to apply some of the utility modeling work I used to do as a poker player to real estate investing...Which actually reminds me that I've been meaning to start a really geek thread on a related subject...a bit off the topic (or maybe not), but if you've studied card counting in blackjack or were ever a geek poker player, you may be familiar with the Kelly Criterion...I've recently started thinking about whether there is a way to apply the concept to portfolio real estate investing:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion

It does not matter what I would do because we are not the same person.However, seeing as you were already studying real estate on your own time, plan to invest in it, and have this oppurtunity, I would say go for it.These kinds of oppurtunities are not offered to everyone, and sitting at the right hand of a SUCCESSFUL professional is worth more than your degree.Seize the day, go and get his experience.

You need to at least get a system to study, and even better, attend live training.