I am a newbie too and I'm making the most out of the advice I'm getting here from more experienced investors and I am as exited as you.

It's great to have so many experienced knowledgeable people and information on this site to help guide me through this process!

I've spent countless hours on their forums and they have moderators and contributors who are very experienced in the industry.There are a lot of websites like FreeCreditScore.com and CreditKarma that have a lot of feel good ads and appear to offer free credit scores.  

I'm really looking to connect with experienced investors in my area, an am looking to network with a few at the Texas Real Estate Investors Circle meeting tomorrow in Dallas.

I am open to aiding a more experienced investor to learn some new things.

I am curious what some of the lesser experienced folks are doing when it comes to possible deficiency judgments.  

Best is to find an experienced local Lender who you really trust and lay everything out.  

As a beginner I would recommend teaming up with an experienced flipper and learning the ropes, before going all in.

I'd like to meet up with some investors experienced in my area as well, but the property taxes in Volusia county are really high, like 1.5-1.75X what they are in Jacksonville, just running the numbers with all else being equal I feel like that's a disadvantage for buy and hold.

Experienced buyers of lower and mid priced properties may be used to seeing an assignment fee in the $5-7k range, maybe $10k.