If I had a do over, I would have taken advantage of lower down payments and "moved up" yearly from multiplexes to a nice home for me and my family. 

The advantage of claiming a Capital Gain is no Self Employment Tax added (15.3% more).When starting out it's not so critical that you have a Real Estate Specific CPA.

Search military on BP and a ton of info will come up related to strategies folks in the military move around and take advantage of their VA loans!

Commercial has advantages however vacancies can last a year of longer so you need deeper pockets to ride them out.3) You do not pay off rentals, equity kills the cash flow.

Unless you've lived in one of those markets before and really know it well, you're not gaining any advantage by investing where friends and family live - you'll be hiring a PM that knows the area, and you shouldn't have to check in on the prop physically with any frequency unless you just want to.

From reading his books I had decided real estate had several advantages I liked, so I would start in real estate.

Might as well take advantage of your Pro membership and see what happens. 

What are the major advantages and disadvantages?

@Demetrius WrightYou have an advantage because you already should have a pretty good idea of your market.

. - Yeah both of our flips (our first and our current) have been through courthouse auctions.The advantage to them is that its a limited crowd unlike the online auction sites, so you can get some deals (we had around a 100k profit on our first deal) but the disadvantages are (1) most auctions are fruitless so you waste a lot of time going for nothing, and (2) you dont get to see inside the property before the auction - so there can be some ugly surprises.Depending on your market and the competitiveness it may or may not be your cup of tea