I am also relatively new to the real estate world but am operating a successful duplex rental and have been studying real estate for 2-3 years.

I have studied the Bay Area real estate market closely over the past 10 years and 2 years ago I decided to take a leap of faith and go after my real estate goals. 

Does anyone have good book recommendations that are 1) good study guides for the real estate licensing exam?

Also in regards to continuously putting down 15% - 20%, at the time I was purchasing the property was before I had discovered the BP podcast and was not aware of all of the more creative ways to purchase properties and my only other known alternative at the time was to use an FHA loan on which the mortgage insurance would have diminished the return so much that it wasn't feasible. 

For example, a brand new class A property will probably not greatly impact a class C property as theyre competing for different rental populations.You should do your best to determine how competitive you'd be for the same renters as this new building to begin evaluating the impact it would have then study your local rental market.

Sounds like you need to study up on property analysis.Garth mentioned PMI and yes, on an FHA loan you'll have to refi to get rid of it now.

NJ is probably at least $200K all-in in better areas from what I have seen and even that can be tough to find.Brooklyn is a non-starter without cash or partners who have it as entry prices are high and even the low-income areas have been discovered.

His girlfriend is currently studying architecture (bachelor's degree).In the future we are going to invest together and probably start a construction company/architecture firm.At the moment our plan is to build duplexes, fourplexes and sixplexes beside our full-time-jobs and eventually start investing full time.As you might can imagine we can put down a serious amount of sweat equity.

His girlfriend is currently studying architecture (bachelor's degree).In the future we are going to invest together and probably start a construction company/architecture firm.At the moment our plan is to build duplexes, fourplexes and sixplexes beside our full-time-jobs and eventually start investing full time.As you might can imagine we can put down a serious amount of sweat equity.

Any insight or help or better yet, case studies, would be welcome!