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There are other strategies that involve foreclosures and getting home owner to sign deed over to you, but for now I'd suggest learning more about flipping and lease options as entry-level real estate investing strategies.
How do you find properties that would make good real estate investments? Again, an entire article can be devoted to that, but there are basically two ways: you go looking for them, or you get them to come to you. The first way involves reading newspaper classifieds and scanning Multiple Listing Service (MLS). This is where having a great real estate agent is a must - they can get you more details on homes than you can view on mls website, and can often let you know of great deals before they even become available to general public.
Having home owners contact you means setting up an advertising campaign. This can involve placing ads in newspaper, placing bandit signs at strategic locations around town, starting a direct mail campaign, etc. There are many ways to let people know that there's a new real estate investor in town, and it would be in your best interest to try each of them to see which ones work best for you.
Whether you decide to go looking for deals, have them come to you, or both, they key is to be persistant. Real estate investing is a numbers game - most of time you won't be able to make deal work, but every time you do it translates into thousands of dollars for you. The more owners you talk to, more deals you'll be able to do, more money you'll make.
I hope this article gives you a bit of an idea of what world of real estate investing is like. There's a lot to learn out there, and all of it is very interesting. Find area that interests you most, then get out there and start talking to home owners. Don't be discouraged if you're getting turned down a lot - just remember that when it does pay off, it will pay off big!
Adem Hamidovic is a part time real estate investor and operator of http://www.ProfitPiggy.com, a website devoted to new and experienced real estate investors alike.