This business is addictive, you'll be thinking of this real estate all the time, you'll read, listen to real estate smarties attempting to impress and entice you with short cuts to riches........charges will mount up on your plastic, you'll spend lots of the money you can't afford on motel Smarties* who want to sell you the next big secret of getting rich.

So therefore to assume I am acting haphazardly is inaccurate.  

Main thing: don't take shortcuts, especially on the important stuff like money and screening.

Let's just think about what on can do with 40k in real estate investing.....Whenever somebody tells you that there is a short cut to wealth, They are more often than not trying to sell you that short cut too...Like I have often done when seeking out my mentors...

I see people taking shortcuts on that all the time which would lead to a nasty surprise.

We tend to leave out the specifics that posting tends to become a lot of short cut answers. :/

I am not exactly new to real estate investing since I’ve owned several rentals before, but I did it somewhat haphazardly.

The short cut to your assessment and unasked question is come with 35% minimum.

Go to my profile, start looking at my seller financing, Sub-To, Lease Option, TIC, TAC, TOE, posts, that is the only short cut I can offer you in the forums.  

I don't think there are any shortcuts to that because I usually need to read the agent's comments to know the true condition of the house.