@Obi Nwapa Real estate investing is better than leaving money in the bank for numerous reasons, but in my opinion the biggest is tax savings, leverage, and ability to scale.

There are numerous places out there; some don't even require tax returnsStephanie

I've had numerous family members who became very successful in it and I would like to follow.

This is due in large part to major corporations like Intel, Honda, Nationwide Children's Hospital, and Wexner Medical Center investing heavily in the region and creating numerous job opportunities.

@Slocomb Reed, you can search numerous threads or Dodd Frank regulation, but what you will find can be summarized as followsDodd Frank Act, and administrative rulings by the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, are unbelievably numerous, hard to interpret, subject to subjective judgements, have harsh and draculon penalties for even small or inadvertent infractions, and cases are being pursued by trail attorneys both as individual cases and as part off class action.So, a lender set up to do a huge volume of personal mortgage loans may find the risk acceptable, the enormous investment in compliance and personnel  and procedures a cost of doing business.Private lenders do not have the time, money, staff or risk tolerance to be in this market. 

I can speak to this as a Realtor in Vegas who has dealt with this on numerous occasions.It's almost always a no.

We're expected to double in population in the next 20 years and numerous companies are moving here, lots from NYC and San Fran.

The prices are based on numerous criteria which include items like expected rent growth. 

(and again, and again, and again until you can't stand living with housemates any more--at which point, you should have enough equity and cashflow that you can get your own place).House hacking is one of the BEST strategies around, and I've written numerous posts on the forums describing the specific benefits of house hacking (take a look at those posts for more info).Good luck out there!

I've helped numerous investors both buy and sell STR in this market over the last few years.