Quote from @Gregg Hutton: As a realtor who started as an investor first, I’ve noticed a huge mindset difference between investors and traditional homebuyers.

We've seen it here, we started getting several employees of a fictitious trucking company. 

Start with BiggerPockets Ultimate Beginners Guide (free).

There's a reason that people try to buy properties off-market and that is because you can find sellers who care more about terms than maximizing returns.So start with a conversation: you already presumably have some rapport since it's your landlord and you've spoken before.

Quote from @Jaedon Stout: @Matt Ridenour yes the major Banks are the best especially for no doc funding and lending to start ups with great promotional rates.

Don't listen to those who say you have to have _______ dollars to start.

I am excited to start building my portfolio and learning all I can.

Rents have gone down since I started my research.

Hi Aidan, when you first started you can create your partnership agreement per deal depending on what your end goal is for the property. 

Focus on absentee owners and start with the ones who live the farthest away and only own one property in the area since they have the least use for the property.You can also drive for dollars, looking for anomalies of disrepair and then look them up in the tax records and use a site like Spokeo to do cheap skip tracing.