In a world of excuse makers, you'll succeed in anything regardless of the challenges you have to overcome due to your age. 

Among the factors to consider in making these decisions, are risk tolerance, availability of cash, creditability, greed, financial stature, market conditions and outlook, inflation/appreciation potential, what age/phase of one's life one is in and of course each individual deal or property's characteristics. 

Hey Rob-     You have some powerful experience in the industry, given your work with inspections and verification. 

@Adam@Adam Boonzaayer it's no problem at all to cash out refi long term without income verification.  

This day in age companies are lacking good ol' customer service, that old school "greet them with a smile" motto. 

Traditional and Roth IRA plans are limited to contributions of $5500 per year or $6500 for those age 50 and older.A 401(k) is a true employer sponsored retirement plan, and must be established under the umbrella of a for profit enterprise as a benefit for employees of the company. 

This comment as it stands doesn't really provide enough info for a conclusion.If you could include the type of ad you had, what the copy consisted of, your budget, how long you ran it for, who you targeted, etc. if that makes sense.For all we know, your ad could've said "we buy houses" in comic sans rainbow colors and targeted males aged 18-24 in one zipcode who have "recently bought using a credit card online" ... which would most likely not generate any leads and be your reason for not getting good results even if you had a $20k landing page haha. 

My dream is to learn how to start investing into real estate at the age of 18.

I would be cautious and look at both the assessment history as well as the building age to determine what I might expect. 

In this age of almost unlimited information at our fingertips, we still learn best by actually doing it!