As a marketing professional, I've worked in many different industries with start-ups and well established companies.

(This will help you SAVE to get into the game)Inform them why you want such a position and what you know about the industry.

There are deals to be found - I've had some success with courthouse step foreclosures, but generally they make sense for flipping, not buy and hold (after rehab costs), since rents just aren't high enough to satisfy any of the "rules of thumb", be it 1, 2 50%, etc.One of the challenges in NorCal is that too much of the money is derived from few industries, so there is a lot of sensitivity to fluctuations in those areas with resultant impacts to the RE markets.

Especially as VCU continues to expand and we're seeing more industrial and office jobs flood in yearly.

Mike, I'm with @Jon Holdman on this, flips don't qualify for 1031 treatment, and get taxed pretty heavily as he stated above.  

I am by no means an expert, but I have 20k sqft (lite industrial) in the Bay Area.

Of course she does not have money for the treatment, so it looks like I'll have to pay for it.  

I flipped a property several years ago when I was working in the mortgage industry, and also had a Handyman business for several years.

Made a video about it recently outlining the importance of self-defense for our industry: http://youtu.be/aaSKgD2ekWM Thanks for watching!

Other than that, some good points have been made to the OP, and I'd fully agree that often when you try to outsmart industry standard pracitces, it just doesn't work in your favor.