Have you thought about partnering up in joint ventures or getting involved in syndication?

Understand the fees involved and calculate the total cost for an entire year of management so you can compare the different managers.

Obviously there would be risk involved, as a lot of things can happen in 2 years.

as a newbie and who also wants to own my own properties before the end of 2018 I would like to know what your action steps/ method you used to get your feet wet in real estate and what did you learn ?

I'm in a cheaper market, but I use the HELOC method. 

Having to dig up the parking lot and redo the line to the street and repave can be many tens of thousands of dollars depending on the length of the run involved and how deep the lines are.Make sure you have the full financial numbers from the seller and they verify before spending thousands on inspections to only find out sellers numbers are wrong and they will not adjust the price etc.Hopefully in your purchase and sale contract you had language such as due diligence period does not start until ALL of the items listed are received by the buyer.

I'm not sure if there are crimes involved with doing this or if its to avoid being sued but I've always been told not to do it. 

I am new to the forum and looking to get involved. 

Tough to make out exactly what he was saying.To see what he’d say, I offered to have my attorney set up an escrow account (at no cost to him) to hold the $5600 for us and to help us complete the transaction, to which he responded that would mean he would not have the funds then available to pay for the due diligence activities, and that would not be fair to him.Suffice to say, when he outright declined to do business using legitimate methods, I knew for sure this guy was a scammer.

It is one of the most cost efficient methods as well and low startup cost.