Some of your cautions are well taken and I thank you.I am probably trying to "buy a job" because it is the only viable occupation that goes with my skills, in which you have the potential to make some good money.Incorporating as a LLC and getting a partner may be the way to go or maybe finding a property under a 100K and put the 50K cash i have into it, with the other 50K coming from the HELOC.The other idea that I have read a lot about is finding pre-foreclosures that you could sell wholesale or maybe buy it subject to the Sellers loan keeping your money invested to a minimum.Are there a lot of folks in this forum that wholesale property?

Also, lacking in math skills.

The big question is what skills, assets, traits, etc do you bring to the table to mitigate the risk that would otherwise be inherent in this investment.If the answer is none, and unless the upside makes the risk worthwhile, you should probably pass.

The cap rate reflects the risk assumed, as pointed out above, and the return on our investment as well as the return of our invetment.If you go to an attorney who has been in the business for 2 years, the value of his services will probably be less than the one with 40 years experience, not so much as he knows more of what is contained in the statutes, but that his experience in applying the law to benefit his client.The skills you acquire in real estate are similar, if you are new and you flip a property that was not touched and you try to get 35% profit, and get it, you may be viewed as greedy considering what you brought to the table, more like lucky, but if I made it, those in the business would probably say something like, he identified a great bargin and worked magic to bring it to market value.

That tells me that many a Guru went from Investing in Real Estate to selling How to's on Real Estate Investing and learned their marketing skills from Internet Marketing Gurus like Frank Kern who did in fact create and market the e-book on "How to teach your Parrot to talk.

It CAN be done, but it's a different skill set.

Plus, I've already run my own small business (in marketing) for 12 years now.It does seem, however, that this business is full of property managers who provide poor service (or no service), or who perhaps don't have the skills or desire to manage properties professionally or to run a small business.

I really want to flip houses, and I am a skilled carpenter that can do everything to a house but electrical,plumbing or roofing.

Given that he apparently now has the CIA after him, do you think he'd consider it worth the risk just to make some money -- especially given that his vast computer skills could certainly earn him a very nice living without the risk of imprisonment or death.Assange is not a dumb guy, and if he just wanted to make some money without contributing to the public good, he could find some much better ways to do so...Of course, that's just circumstantial reasoning on my part, but it makes sense (to me, at least)...I have no proof of his intentions one way or the other, obviously...

The more time you spend the quicker it should happen, but it will depend on your skill, your strategy, how lucky you get and a lot of other internal factors.Good luck.