I'm still familiarizing myself with the different neighborhoods and areas but I'm starting to figure out which areas to avoid and which areas to spend time marketing to.

Therefore, I am hopeful BP members familiar with this type of investment and these areas can assist.

It can be overwhelming.While the courses will only scratch the surface and not really prepare to make money, passing the test will demonstrate that you can study and at least be familiar with fundamentals. 

House hack, and then roll out of it into another unit as quickly as possible.I'm not completely new to real estate, I work for CoStar, Loopnet (and now apartments.com) so I am familiar with much of the terminology.My first deal I am also looking to rehab the duplex that I would be moving into, so I know it's going to take one more layer of analysis and a little more risk/reward, but I am confident with all the experience on here I will do great.  

We are not familiar with NJ so didn't know about Union and somerset county. yes, We are currently renting and saving as much as we can so we can have some cash to spend when we buy the first home.

It would also be nice having someone that is a little more familiar with being a landlord to help us with our 1st prop.

@Rob Grove I'm familiar with what you are asking.  

hello, im a hvac /plumbing contractor and have done rei in the past and present. here is my idea and question. we have a property free and clear that  is 3.5 acres with income of $2500.00 of rent per mont on 4 old buildings. we did a market analysis and plans 3 years ago to build 72 apartments. everything looks good as far as zoning and city permits. the budget was 3.2M the property itself is worth 450k and the bankers gave us green light.we didn't move forward with it because os the risk of it, we forecasted that we would end up owing more than 2.5 M and we did not wanted to risk that much by ourselves. 2 years ago someone built 30 apartments lest than .5mille away from the property and they have 75-80% occupancy already.talking with my wife we come up with this idea, since we know construction business owners on almost all the trades and have done business with them and a person familiar with apartment building construction on the past. we would like to form a partnership with couple of them where they can own part of the business in exchange of their work (trade) and if any one wants to be more involve and want to put hard money their % would be more.do you think it can be done any legal issues? 

Although we don't cover Vermont, our real estate team is quite familiar with land sales and I'd be more than happy to help you if you have any questions. 

I know 14K is not a huge profit but I want to let everyone out there know that I have done thousands of BPO's in the Tucson, Az area and I am extremely familiar with the market.