I am going to continue to read and learn and hopefully gain some good feedback and advise from those of you here!!

Hi im new to real estate and would like to know all the best books to read before i start to invest. Im interested in flipping but not sure if this would be the best route. What would you personally do if you had 200k...

Many on here will advise not to go out of state for your first investment.

i just joined a refferal team to help homeowners in forclosure, i need to generate my own leads, if anyone has clients that may need help, can you reffer them to me. in return if we cant help i can send them back to you, or if you buy foreclosed homes and i cant help them, i will again reffer them to you.

My preferences at this point are apartment complexes or single family homes with the goal of generating cash flow.

It will probably generate more questions, also.

Yet, if I'm only clearing a couple of hundred dollars a month on a rental property, then doesn't that mean I'd have to own enough properties to generate an amount equal to my personal monthly expenses?

Maybe you should be looking for ways to generate/save some money so that you could have a downpayment or at least have the payments for a loan.

I am always eager to advise against starting with a rehab.

So my 2 cents is the deal sounds pretty good, but might be worth renting out for at least a year for capital gains and to avoid trying to do a 1031 exchange as the other members advised.