Hey all, I'm a relatively new investor in the State College, PA area (home of Penn State).

Some you might do well to go to a local college/university to view.http://scholar.google.com/scholar?

They know that market really well and can probably help you find a good deal on your owner occ. as well as some investment properties.I'm sure they'll be online to intro themselves shortly.Good luck!

So my point is that I think I can really get clear about the "reputation" of a builder and a neighborhood in a most likely stronger way than if I were just searching online and such.

Hey Matt,Welcome to the best online resource for real estate investing that you will ever come across!

So I did as much research as i could online and found that all the cheap properties were in pretty rough neighborhoods and the local economy did not seem to support flipping in any significant volume.I then looked into Memphis TN, again all properties under 40k were in rough neighborhoods.I'm now leaning towards San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, or HoustonThe only problem with them is finding a house under 40k for us to live in, I did find a few Manufactured homes in the country close to Dallas and some a little over a hour north of Houston, I would be fine living in one of the manufactured homes close to Dallas for quite some time, my only issue is tying up most of my free cash in a house that i cannot refi to free up the cash again.Thanks for taking the time to read my rather long post and i look forward to hearing your suggestions!

Currently rents for $1750/mo with college renters)My question: do I leave the equity in the house, or do I draw it out and try to buy a property or two where I may have to put a cash down payment (against my current process of property acquirement)?

The reason is instead of steady college degree type jobs the type of tenant is more unstable with income working 2 to 3 jobs or lower end professions etc.So I would ask what you goal is with this and how much time you have to invest in such a property??

They do all of the online advertising on the major sites.

What I usuall do is go on line and request a listing of recently sold homes in the zip code I'm interested in from Zillow and Trulia this usually gives me an idea.