My main worry is; is school a essential?

& No i have not met with any license professionals, BUT I am currently working on an letter of apprenticeship to send out to various real estate investors.May I ask, how long did you attend school and what did you attend school for?

For rentals I like them do to the schools as well.

Analysis should first be appropriate to the mission at hand, at least that's what was taught in the MBA School in Finance when I went to school.

Secondly, I would become active on BP so you can start learning about different aspects of real estate investing because you are back in school again.

Thanks for letting me know about meetups in the area, I would love to chat with other Bay Area investors.I definitely think East Palo has started to gentrify (Starbucks, Home Depot, Four Seasons all contribute $), but schools still have a long way to go.I bought in East Palo Alto in 5/2009; a fixer in East Palo Alto in 2010 and sold that; a fixer in Redondo Beach in 2/2011 and a fixer in Mountain View in 1/2012 but nothing since.

I studied Economics/Business admin and am now in Law School, looking to get to know the site and the members as I work on getting started in Real Estate and hopefully the commercial end of the business.

My wife had recently gone back to school, and had become friends with a young lady who was doing cleaning on the side to bring in extra money.

You need to look at houses in the area you want to work, and don't make it too big,,start with a zip code, learn everything you can about houses that have recently sold, check out every house on the market, find out what they later sold for.Know about the schools, does on street go to one high school, but one over goes to a different one, which one is more desirable (big deal in the area I buy).You don't get to know a market overnight,,it takes time, but until you start you won't ever know the market.Look at houses,,,lots and lot of houses,,talk to realtors, talk to investors,,you don't have to get an appointment to see the inside of all of them,,just check them out as best you can (an agent won't really appreciate taking you to 30 houses every weekend,,,

The best answer to your question is probably going to come from a local real estate school.