Spend some time reading about the various ways to do it and then start learning about the one or two that grab your interest.

If you get the loans discounted, do a title search before spending any money.

Should I spend any more money or just pull the trigger and go down fighting.

Find an agent that's willing to spend the time looking at many properties and making lots of offers.Be sure the agent is OK with making multiple offers at once.

So I spend the half hour counseling these folks cause they're in a jam.

You could spend a tiny fraction of that to get your own leads.

You might find what you are looking for, but I do stress that you spend sometime in there before jusmping into doing business with someone!

How much money should I anticipate having to spend on my first deal?

If you are doing the work yourself, go spend a day at Home Depot or Lowes looking over the material price.

As much as I hated spending my summers working on the houses the experience I gained was something you couldn't pay for.I graduated from Virginia Tech in May 2003 and lived at home for the summer while I started my full time career as an IT Consultant.