I am also new to this RE world too~ i still in learning stage after vesting more than 20k on my real estate course three months back..I am a full time employee (and a mom of 2 yr old) in NY area~ Best wishes to your success and lets do keep in touch~Thank you Andrew for the list!

Think of it as the awkward in between stage, where you are the "ugly" duckling". 

I am in my early stage of my career and would like to be well informed in things related to RE.  

Completely staged!

I have been in the education stage for 9 months, and am ready to get my feet wet.

(At this stage you might not need to know how many yachts you want or where you will spend your holidays).

Dawn is right, ask them to "pre-qualify" you for a mortgage, the next stage can be obtaining a loan approval subject to the property, but pre-qualification will let you know what price range you can look at.

Welcome @Tony Chen Yeah man, I feel like the other posts said it before me, but getting nay cash flow in So Calis a hard thing to do.I'm more into the flipping game at this stage in my life, but if I can help, don't hesitate to reach out!

This may not hold true for others but for me still being in the early stages of my business I find that I do have to sacrifice sleep some times if it means getting things done to help the business grow.

We are in the final stages of escrow which has taken over 3 months to get here so unfortunately that isn't an option.