I spent most evenings and most weekends fixing up my house and learning how to do things (demo, tiling, plumbing, electric...you name it).

As an investor from out of state or area always suggested to partner in with an active operational partner that can oversee day to day.

There is a school that I will be signing up with \ that offers the required 60 hours before I can take the state exam.My question is....Is it common to have in-active agent under Brokers.

For one thing those are not active markets which means much more transactional cost getting in and out.

There are active members here doing well in that area here.

A lot depends on your goals.Here is a previous thread that may give you some answers.https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/55/topics/103905-another-newbie-question---if-you-had-400k-how-would-you-spend-itYou also need to decide how active or passive you want to be.

That may or may not be in the range of the median house price depending on how much new construction activity is going on in your market.

It is a great forum for learning and asking questions and meeting others in the area who are either actively investing or just starting out.

There are very active REIAs in Georgia REIA and Atlanta REIA.

There is a good contingent of people from Metro Detroit who are pretty active on here and there were 2 recent meetups and I'm sure more to come in 2014.