When you are in a stronger position (both mentally and monetarily), you'll be less hesitant to take action as opportunity presents itself.

Action is much more important as you won't get experience waiting and truly the only finite resource is time. 

What plan of action would you take in this scenario?

Read Scott Trench's book, 'Set for Life,' and you will see it in action. 

When I'm running 1 percent calculations, if I get something that is 0.6 percent or higher that is usually a sign to, again, look deeper into the property.Besides figuring out what your goals are, how you want to get started, and meeting like-minded people, the first action item would be to talk to a lender.

The only thing you'll regret (aside from making a terrible decision :) ) is not taking action!

Can you do a cash out refinance of your primary residence to consolidate your consumer debt and also get you the cash you will need to cover the down payment and closing costs?

Plumber says a clog that blocks a 6 inch pipe can not evacuate through a 3 inch clean out.Anyway, we had to take action on it.  

I am new to Real Estate investing hung up on my first course of action.

We see these often in foreclosure where we ask the court in a declaratory judgment action to hold that the leases aren't valid and to strike the agreement between the parties because it's not good faith and fair dealing.There's likely precedent to that effect in your state, but it's so much harder to cure a bad lease than to not buy the property with a bad lease on it.