Oh boy...I can really relate @Michael Ouvrard with your story of being a relatively well-paid but less than wealthy pharmacist PhD...I have a PhD as well and have grown to absolutely hate my college professor job (surly students, constant, long, boring meetings, rude colleagues, too many nights away from wonderful family on useless conference travel, very little money in my bank account at the end of the month!!).

If you are already wealthy or very highly paid, you can make a lot of money on California real estate.

Always ask yourself what kind of class and culture of people are you going to be renting to?

Accumulation of wealth is not worth the hassle if you are not enjoying every aspect of the game.

I'm not wealthy or anyway near rich--believe me. 

It's very close to downtown, it has it's own arts & culture area, and it's close to Mass Ave.

I too would like to build long term wealth. I

I think that you will find that there is no one good resource to learn about money management, and that lots of smart people here on BiggerPockets and around the web will disagree intelligently on the best ways to manage your money.I think that a good list of books to begin reading if you are interested on taking control of your money, learning to invest, and having money work for you, instead of having to work for money, are these:1) Richest Man in Babylon (Great for learning basic finance principles - probably the first book you should read)2) Rich Dad Poor Dad (Great for understanding how wealthy people think about money)3) The Four Hour Work Week (Great for understanding the concept of lifestyle design and that Effort does NOT always correspond to productivity)4) The Millionaire Next Door (Great for understanding about what REAL Rich people do with their lives and money)5) The Wealth Barber (A Great step by step look at a reasonable approach for a typical american looking to manage their wholistic financial position)6) The Compound Effect (A Great Book that Discusses the Gradual, then accelerative, then explosive nature of finance, and many other life objectives)Oh, and since you are learning about money - get these books from the library for FREE! 

  * Talked to someone at the funds to get questions answered and to get a "vibe" for the culture.

I chose to target high end projects to meet and build relationships with wealthy and influential people in the community.4.