I tried attending one in my local market a couple of times but felt like I was in some hotel ballroom being pitched on how the 12 year-old kid up in front would teach us all how to run to the back of the room to swipe $10K on our AMEX for the secrets of real estate investing.

I plan to stay in this general area for at least the next 20 years and think buying real estate would be a great way to diversify my investment portfolio.So in almost any scenario you will come ahead buying vs renting over twenty years probably well less than half of that, but the investment you are making is a long term investment you probably won’t be able to leave after a year or two and rent for more than your mortgage, I’d really think about where you want to live medium-long term, than any investment metric, because the longer you stay the better the investment looks, and if you can move out sooner great, but I’d guess at minimum you’d have to stay 5 years before rents would catch up to your mortgage. 

Sec8 is the "Options Trading" of Investment Real Estate. 

Still, I think you'd find it difficult to find one that would be a good long-term investment unless you had another ~20-30 years to go, it's at least cash neutral, and you don't plan to hold it too long (to avoid too much investment loss and before you get to the point where it's unsellable because of too few years left); that's another way of saying that maybe it suits your cash needs in the near-term or is at least less of a pill to swallow than other options until you find something that's more of a sensible long-term play

I am open to connecting with other investors like me who work on their investments and the investment services world.

I’d like to opportunistically invest  There has been no sell off in the DC market.

Investment Info:Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

It's been 2.5 years since I purchased my first property and now that everything in my personal life has slowed down I'm back on the horse and ready to find my next investment.

Planning to invest in Research triangle are of NC for rental.3.

Quote from @Robel Nessro: Hi I am 18 years old and I've been really interested in Commercial Real Estate investing since I was 16 and I don't much about CRE investing and I would really love some advice on how too start funding your first property, and where I can learn CRE investing,  I've also been thinking about joining the Air Force so that I can buy my first commercial property using the VA loan and continue from there and buy more, but I don't know if that's a good idea or not.