I am hoping to gain the knowledge, resources and relationships that would teach me how to alleviate the burden of my student loans on my goals and progress in this industry.

BTW one of the tactics that really ramped up our progress was my wife retiring teaching and moving her 403b to a SD-IRA and buying a bunch of rentals in her IRA.  

I began this way as well, but eventually progressed into land transactions rather than flipping properties.

Jonathan and Gary are great guys and doing well in their investing.Lubbock is steady eddy as far as housing is concerned.

As a teen, the dreams of that 10 year old were being tucked away in the back of my brain in lieu of jobs that provided steady income and generous benefits.

Slow and steady wins the race and you came to the right place for learning! 

We have grown our portfolio in a slow-and-steady manner, while living overseas. 

Cops have a steady paycheck.

At the numbers you presented, even at a 7 cap rate the property isn't worth 360k until year 7 (if you assume rents grow at 3% a year and expenses grow at 2% a year) and you have negative cash flow for the first 2 years.Since it's a 1980 property, I'm assuming it's not on the bleeding edge of the path of progress and I'm assuming it's not a A class property (a 5 cap is usually reserved for high demand areas and A class properties).Unless you're very certain the rental rate growth is substantial, I wouldn't buy this property for anywhere near what they are asking for it.

Regards,     Alex Steady