During the latest and greatest podcast featuring Jay Papasan, Jay brought up an interesting point made by Trump that he learned nothing when the markets were good and everything in down markets (I'm sure I butchered the quote, but I was driving and wasn't able to write it down!).

So far I have a list (500) of absentee owners I purchased from list source, and a list of 80+ homes that I got from driving for dollars.

I am in my first year of investing, with seven doors in the metro Atlanta region.Though I don't have any specific advice for investing in your market, I can tall you that I have learned more from the BP Podcast than from any other source.

From most other sources I have come across, swapping the 2% return you might currently be getting for your $71k for a return of $8.06%, when all you have to do is be responsible for a mortgage of $249k for an asset that SHOULD be worth $320k - is not something most investors would recommend.

(My mistake) Revisit passions as interchangable sources of inspiration.

Many members are experts in their respective fields related to real estate investing, whether that is real estate brokerage, wholesaling, flipping, buy and hold, lending, self-directed IRA and Solo 401k investing, or tax and legal guidance.There are some pretty cool discounts on various products and services offered as Perks to BP members that you might want to check out: https://www.biggerpockets.com/perks/proIf you haven’t checked it out already, the Bigger Pockets blog features links to their awesome podcast and many great articles: https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/The site has quite a few tools that can be helpful for new members.

If it helps, I've been in my current job 3 1/2 years (and hate it), earn about 43k per year, I pay $900 monthly rent now and don't think I can afford to pay more than that without other source of income, also loan would be only myself and my credit is in the 690's.My priority now is quitting my 9-5 job, but this end of lease is making me question what is the right next step for me.Any advise, comments and guidance is greatly appreciated!!

Do you know where you are going to source your private money from?  

The mortgage brokers will likely have access to more funding sources and can probably get more creative with the financing than a local bank or credit union.Can you provide more details on your situation? 

My understanding is that if you have funds available for transaction A-B (hard money, transactional,etc), you would be able to do transaction B-C because you have already purchased the property with the funding source.