It's not really helping you on your main goal, if anything it's distracting you and taking time away while you could be educating yourself on analyzing deals/property management, or making money as a handyman to fund that first deal! 

Hello, I am a 21 year old trying to educate myself more on real estate investing and hopefully look into buying my first rental property sometime within the year 2022. 

At this point in time I have not started investing into RE yet as I am not that far along in my plan but I figured I should educate myself as much as possible ahead of time.

@Kathleen Everitt runs the other meetup that is more educational and they meet once a week. 

I would keep educating yourself, but really be tight on your buying criteria if you feel you are ready and understand flips will take a long time right now.

The education (books, podcasts, classes, forum posts, 100 property analysis, driving for dollars) is done at this point.

If you are purchasing only investment properties consider looking into Associated Bank, Educators and TruStone, because they are local they may have lower down payment requirements. 15-20%On the Refi Rates there shouldn't be too much change in your repayment amount, if we are only changing percentage on a 150k with 25% down 3%, and we change to 4% and everything else the same mortgage goes up about $60 a monthAdditionally, your first duplex in 2020 you have lived there over a year so you can get a low down payment and low interest rate loan on an owner occupied 2-4 unit whether that is through an in house bank/credit union product or the FHA programIm open to any questions you may have.

I have done ample reading and research, but am fully aware that my education is no where close to where I want to be.

That condo deal taught me more than I could have ever learned from education, so I consider it a blessing!

I have been in education for 22 years (full-time), and a real estate agent for 2 years (part-time primarily).