@Jerry WeberWelcome to the vibrant BP community, where you will find like minded individuals committed to REI and also helping others succeed.Your time on this social media site will be well spent.You have taken the 1st step by announcing your readiness and commitment to embark on a REI career.Whether you pursue, wholesale, flips or buy and hold it's up to you to decide.Below, are some links for three of the most popular niches from which your can review and pick one or all.My take on your preparation to embark on REI is that you simultaneously educate yourself and work on getting your debts down to size.

As an educator I am in the business of also providing customer service.

Since you're in the process of buying your first home, consider buying a duplex and 'House Hacking' to get started as a real estate investor.This strategy is pretty popular ... here's a blog post by @Brandon Turner about it:https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/11/02/hack-housing-get-paid-live-free/

What are your creative lending strategies or rates when relating to the "I want to sell to buy" now kind of customers. 

For this very reason we provide our customers with access to our Advanced Deal Analysis Software that allows you to know the details and the potential opportunity for every deal before we send evaluators out to the property.

As Bill said you are getting into a very popular type of real estate right now.

As in any business customer retention is important.Any newbie will love a 50/50 split.  

I am 31 years old with 14 years as a rough carpenter building new custom Homes and remodels, 7 years as a single/multi family building analyst.

Here, they are nasty, gray and won't just stand around looking at the camera.But they're fun, worth watching for the finishes, and besides, they help set your customer's expectations, so it is good to know what they are up to.Plus Christina's legs.  

@Hersh M.Unfortunately that graph wouldn't prove anything other than the fact that Bigger Pockets has become more popular due to any number of factors - potentially including an increased interest in real estate investing from the general public, but also from Bigger Pockets expanding their content, ranking higher on google searches, word of mouth, etc.