Fast forward to today and I've been doing the same type of work (admin support for faculty) with a small increase in pay and a title change.

I am looking for someone to partner with who can show me the ropes of wholesaling and other facets of real estate investment as I work to increase the income of both myself an my partner. 

Typically if you have a large down payment of 20-25%, you can still find properties with positive cash flow in single family and you make money on the appreciation.I bought a newer Townhouse in home town Orangeville recently which is cashflow positive with 20% dp.I agree with Luc and Ming points, you have to be able to improve the property, either improve cash flow or increase property value with reno's.I have looked at multi family and retail net properties but have not found anything too exciting yet.

The lease is fairly simple and you charge standard rates for your area. 

Final bonus for California investors is prop 13 will ensure minimal property tax increase so as profits and value increase the taxes stay fairly flat.  

I've even increased an offer by $2K because I liked the Seller and made a slightly larger profit than expected.

You can get hard money for the majority of the purchase and rehab (keep the prices low) and use your $11k as the funds you need to add to the deal.You could do a simple rehab and make even just $15k profit, then you have a significant amount of working capital to get going.

Ability to greatly increase rents? 

In order to keep this simple, let's not make judgments on the current state of the stock market or where it might be headed in the next year or 2 or 5; let's simply assume the commonly touted 7-8% average long-term return will continue ... again just to keep it simple.Thanks all ...

Is there a simple idea of the fees that might be involved for setting up these business accounts?