I would be willing to help do some of the foot work in any deals you have going in order for me to learn all the steps involved and to contribute for your help.My main goals at the moment are a combination of acquiring some rental properties for ongoing monthly cash flow and the occasional wholesaling or flipping for more short term cash.  

For me success is a combination of being happy and money.  

This wholesaling forum is the most active forum in its category, yet the most active users are either new wholesalers or non wholesalers crapping on the plans of new wholesalers.

But in my mind, spending time to buy properties which cash flow - completely disregarding any potential appreciation - is a similar kind of "safety insurance".The danger I think is when people come into the market because they think "real estate is going up" and they expect appreciation, without looking at fundamentals (cash flow).It's the real estate equivalent of someone looking for a hot stock tip - they want the rewards without being willing to do the work of educating themselves, doing real investment analysis, and choosing their investments carefully - the "stupid money" as you said.Right now it seems that values are coming back, but real incomes haven't risen, it's really driven by a little more demand due to people feeling their jobs are more secure than a few years ago, combined with still-tight supply.I think what we're going to see over the next few years is that builders will step up to the plate and do a lot of building.

I'm sure eventually I'll be using a combination of strategies depending on the situation, but right now I'm in learning mode while also trying to network & save some money for my first deal.My hobbies include music production and listening to podcasts that deal with online business (i.e. 

I call the company, they try to say it's a browser issue(unfortunately it happens on multiple different browsers/computers) and then say a senior tech will call back after looking into it. nothing happens.Their customer service is crap.

I'd focus on renovating to reduce expenses (repairs and vacancy) rather than to increase rents.Rents are based about 50% on location, 40% on the size of the unit, and 10% on everything else combined.

Or maybe you want to do a combination or start with one strategy and grow into another.

Unfortunately, you have to go through all the "crap" before you can find success.What's the secret to success? 

I like to copy what the large national builders are doing in my area as far as colors combinations.